Archive Magazine 1996/ARCHIVE_96.iso/text/magazine/volume_09/issue_06

Text File | 1996-02-07 | 299KB | 6,353 lines

Products Available
9.06
A7000 backplane Ö The A7000 can either take a CD-ROM or a single
expansion card. However, since most people are going for the CD-ROM,
Acorn have not put a backplane in the computer. So if you want to put an
expansion card in an A7000, you need a single-slot backplane which costs
ú35 through Archive. (cf the two-slot backplane for the ACB60, RiscPC
600, which also costs ú35 through Archive.)
9.06
ART is on the move Ö Applied Risc Technologies have moved into new
premises on the Cambridge Technopark. See Factfile.
9.06
ArtLesson CD-ROM is an art lesson on CD which can, depending on how it
is used, take the user a week, a term or a year to work through. There
are 280 colour pages of ideas, stimulus material and activities in
different types of art media. At the heart of Art Lesson are ten themes,
each consisting of about eight stimulus pages, five or six activities,
and ideas for follow-up and extension. The themes are in a gradual
progression of difficulty, with half of the themes suitable for children
aged 9 years and up. The ten themes include; Driftwood, Lichen, Birds,
Frost, Leaves, Natural Forms, Wood, Brick & Stone, the Sea, and Pictures
from Life. ArtLesson has been written by Christopher Jarman and is
described as being for the non-specialist art teacher at Key Stage 2 and
above. ArtLesson CD-ROM costs ú29.95 +VAT +p&p from Nash Pollock
Publishing.
9.06
Bitfolio 7 CD-ROM is the latest collection of over 10,000 clipart images
from Management Graphics. All of the images have been commissioned by
MGL in the UK and drawn with an international flavour to complement
North American clipart products. 8,000 of the images are entirely new
and most are in full colour; they are royalty-free, so they can be used
in all kinds of printed materials without charge. Because they are
vector graphic drawings, they can be ungrouped and edited to suit usersæ
needs. Bitfolio Edition 7 CD-ROM costs ú80 +VAT +p&p, or ú90 through
Archive. The previous edition, Bitfolio Edition 6 is still available at
the reduced price of ú40 +VAT +p&p, or ú45 through Archive. For more
information, see the review on page 9.
9.06
Burns CD-ROM Ö At this yearæs BETT show, Cambridgeshire Software House
won the Primary Gold Award for their CD-ROM, The World of Robert Burns
(see 9.4 p77 for review). This interactive CD includes all of his poems
and songs; most of his music, and extracts from letters he wrote. There
is information on over 400 places of interest; personal cameos on 400 of
his friends; 850 full colour pictures; full supporting reference
material; a 40,000 word time-line; and ready-made trails to solve and
worksheets to complete. It also gives background information on such
subjects as martyrdom, mining, forestry, fishing, the Bible and much
more. As this year is the bicentenary of Burns, this could be a useful
CD-ROM to have in your collection. The World of Robert Burns costs
ú79.95 +VAT +p&p from CSH, or ú95 through Archive.
9.06
Connect 32 SCSI II Interface Ö These are manufactured by MCS in
Dortmund, Germany (the people who brought you the low price PC card
upgrade Ö see Archive 9.3 p17). The Connect 32 is a SCSI II interface
which MCS claim to be öprobably the fastest real 32-bit card for the
RiscPCò. Jim Nottingham has received reports from users in Germany which
tend to substantiate this claim. In the UK, Connect 32 is available from
Clares for ú199á+áVAT (carriage included) or ú230 inclusive through
Archive. Jim has reports from MCS and others showing compatibility with
numerous SCSI devices, and details are available from Jim at
16áWestfield Close, Pocklington, York, YO4 2EY.
9.06
CoreFS Ö This will be extremely useful to anyone who needs to prepare
floppy discs for bulk duplication. Technically speaking, it is an Éimage
filing systemæ whose partition files are exact floppy disc images,
including disc name and boot options. Inápractice, this means that you
can prepare the contents of a floppy disc on your (much faster) hard
disc, and perhaps store all your master floppy discs on your hard disc
in this way, and then write out any one of them to a real floppy disc in
around 40áseconds! CoreFS supports ADFS formats D, E and F, and also
ArcFS/SparkFS archives and CFS. CoreFS Max provides all the features of
the standard release of CoreFS, but will also allow the creation of
large ADFS partitions suitable for distributing on a CD¡ROM. The benefit
of this is that the filenames within the partition do not have to be
limited to the ISO standard A-Z and underscore characters, nor is it
necessary to place everything in an archive to get around this. The
result is that the user of your CD¡ROM does not have to understand how
to use the various compression programs, and the presentation is
considerably better too. CoreFS Max is supplied with a guide to
mastering CDs and a licence to use it on two CD-ROM titles. CoreFS is
available from Zenta Multimedia for ú45 +VAT or ú50 through Archive.
CoreFS Max is available from Zenta Multimedia for ú95 +VAT or ú106
through Archive.
9.06
Easy Clip from Fabis Computing, does for clipart what Easy Font and Font
Directory do for fonts. It has the capacity to store over half a million
images in most common filetypes, and even compresses them to between 35
and 60%. Features include: large thumbnails of graphics for easy access,
virtual memory manager for thumbnail display; drag and drop between
groups and applications; preview of images in a scalable window. Easy
Clip costs ú35 (no VAT) or ú35 inc VAT through Archive.
9.06
Eesox CDBricks Ö A CDBrick consists of a CDdrive in a single box linked
to a big hard drive. You put the CDs in the drive, one at a time, and
the information is automatically downloaded onto the hard drive. That
information is then available via CDFS as if it had come directly from
the CD, except that it comes through at hard drive speed! The
VAT¡inclusive Archive prices are:
9.06
2Gb (takes about 5-6 CDs)    ú1150
9.06
4Gb (takes about 10-12 CDs)    ú1738
9.06
9Gb (takes about 20-25 CDs)    ú2678
9.06
Eesox CD-ROM towers Ö Eesox has a range of CD-ROM towers to suit all
applications and price points. You can have anything from two to six CD-
ROMs per tower, quad speed or 6.7 speed drives and, for the quad speed
drives, a choice of tray¡loading or the more expensive caddy-loading
type. Sample VAT-inclusive Archive prices are:
9.06
2 ╫ Quad speed (tray)    ú445
9.06
2 ╫ Quad speed (caddy)    ú682
9.06
6 ╫ Quad speed (tray)    ú1150
9.06
6 ╫ Quad speed (caddy)    ú1810
9.06
6 ╫ 6.7 speed (tray)    ú2443
9.06
When bought with a Tower, the CDNetFast utility costs only ú115 instead
of ú148 inclusive through Archive.
9.06
Escape from Exeria 2 is a re-write of the first game, released by Soft
Rock Software. The main points of number 2 are that it has new graphics
and sound effects, and the basic game-play has changed slightly. There
is also a version with enhanced graphics and sound available for the
RiscPC. Escape from Exeria 2 costs ú4.99, or ú7.99 for the RiscPC
version (no VAT, postage included), from Soft Rock Software.
9.06
Expandable SIMMs Ö Simtec have now produced a third size of SIMM memory
cards which are upgradable to twice the size by adding extra chips.
There is an 8Mb to 16Mb SIMM which costs ú255 through Archive and then
another ú255 for the extra chips to upgrade it later. The 16Mb
upgradable to 32Mb is now down to ú490. (cf the current Archive price
for fixed size SIMMs: 8Mb ú220, 16Mb ú420 and 32Mb ú820.)
9.06
Impression Tutorial Guide Ö (This was commissioned by Acorn Australia.)
The Impression Tutorial Guide is designed to be a beginnersæ guide to
using Impression Style and Publisher. As this guide is said to be easier
to follow than the Impression manual, the author, Dr Anthony Wood,
recommends that it be used as an alternative to the Impression manual,
especially for the absolute beginner. There are exercises throughout to
take the user from the very basics right up to some of the more advanced
features of the programs. Impression Tutorial Guides for Publisher and
Style and cost ú9.95 +p&p each, or ú10 through Archive.
9.06
Internet Survival Guide Ö Beebugæs latest offering, The Internet
Survival Guide, is exclusively Acorn-based. It begins by asking what it
is you actually want from the Internet, then explains how you might best
get started. It covers the concepts of email, Usenet, FTP, Telnet and
the Worldwide Web. It also deals with setting up and using all the major
commercial and public domain packages: The Internet Starter Pack,
Freenet, Termite, ANTæs Internet Suite, Voyager and Intertalk, (Acornæs
Internet package). Finally, it provides a list of Service Providers with
prices, local numbers (PoPs), contact details and an ÉAcorn
Friendlinessæ rating. The Internet Survival Guide from Beebug (ISBN
1¡85142-091-6) costs ú6.95 + ú1.70 p&p, or ú8áthrough Archive.
9.06
Informatrix 2 is an A3-sized overlay keyboard with 4096 programmable
keys. It uses a membrane overlay, featuring a range of simple icons to
replace standard QWERTY keystrokes. Because children require no special
computing or typing skills, or even literacy, they can produce graphics,
text and figures on screen, with sounds, just by pressing the
appropriate icons. The high resolution of the keyboard makes it
particularly useful for producing maps, and for finely detailed or
irregularly shaped graphics. The keyboard and stylus can also be used as
a sketch-pad, drawing or tracing shapes in a continuous movement,
instead of having to pick out each cell individually. Informatrix comes
complete with overlay designer software for easy creation of overlays
from any map or picture. Informatrix costs ú179 +VAT +p&p from The
Concept Keyboard Company.
9.06
InterActive Learning Ö From Yorkshire International Thompson Multimedia
come three new titles: Early Victorians CD-ROM is based on Channel 4æs
series ÉHow We Used to Liveæ and is a fully interactive disc providing a
comprehensive database of information on the early Victorian period
(circa 1845), designed for Key Stage 2. Major themes such as trade and
industry, transport, work, domestic life, leisure and education are
brought to life using a combination of video material from the TV
series, along with animations, text, stills and audio. Users can
investigate, in depth, a range of issues, from key historical events
such as the Industrial Revolution, down to biographical details of the
fictional Coggin family, living in the fictional industrial town of
ÉBradleyæ. Early Victorians costs ú69.99 +VAT +p&p, or ú80 through
Archive.
9.06
The Maximania CD-ROM is the second in a series of InterActive CD-ROMs
designed to support the development of reading in children aged 4-7. It
can be used on its own or with the Flying Boot Reading Scheme, published
by Thomas Nelson. The disc comprises a series of six chapters, each
containing sets of educational games which use a different character to
focus on different skill areas, such as matching, sorting, sequencing
and comprehension. The games have several levels through which children
can move, and a completed game can provide teachers and parents with a
profile of the childæs performance in terms of the levels achieved, the
time taken and the number of attempts made. The games and stories are
presented in a way which encourages success and aims to create an active
resource that engages the child and then motivates them to find out more
by reading off-screen. Maximania CD costs ú69.99 +VAT +p&p, or ú80
through Archive.
9.06
Breakaway Maths is a CD-ROM whose aim is to encourage less able 7-12
year-olds to progress in mathematics at Key Stage 2 and 3. Set in Alton
Towers Theme Park, the program captures the imagination of users by
setting a series of true-to-life problem-solving activities and
investigations based on various rides within the park. Extensive use of
full-colour graphics, animations, video and sound, help to hold the
usersæ interest while exploring number, shape & space, algebra and data
handling activities. Having been assessed on entry to the theme park,
each user receives assistance in the shape of four children, who help
them read a map and navigate around the park. This is supplemented by
audio instruction. Most importantly, the complexity of each exercise is
automatically adjusted by the program, in line with each individualæs
performance. Breakaway Maths CD costs ú65 +VAT +p&p, or ú74 through
Archive.
9.06
Kudlian Soft Ö Three new programs from Kudlian Soft: Splosh+ is the
sequel to Splosh, the painting program for young children and those with
special needs. Splosh+ allows access to a far wider range of facilities
which will enable children to exploit the features of the latest
hardware, including the RiscPC. It provides users with, amongst other
things, a wider range of brushes and brush shapes, additional geometric
shapes and fills, multiple undo, imports for JPEG and deep sprites, plus
16, 32, 256 and thousands and millions of colour modes. Splosh will
still be on sale providing a introduction to painting programs.
9.06
ReTreeval is an application that combines a database with a
sophisticated decision tree program. To create and search the database,
all you have to do is answer questions in natural English. The amount of
information stored about each item grows with your needs. ReTreeval
learns with you so that it always asks questions in an easily understood
language. Behind the scenes, it uses a sophisticated object-oriented
database to handle the decisions and questions required to structure the
data. Full reporting facilities are available, allowing data to be
exported as ASCII, CSV or TSV; a tree can be exported as a drawfile, and
data can have a picture associated with it.
9.06
PortFolio is a multimedia application which has been developed to allow
children, or adults, to display a carousel of images, either vector
graphics or bitmaps, including JPEG images. Each picture can have a
sound file or music or a voice recording, associated with it Ö itæs an
ideal tool for displaying childrenæs work using a variety of styles and
media.
9.06
Splosh+ costs ú39 for a single user; ú59 for Primary site pack and ú89
for Secondary site pack. Upgrades from Splosh are available at ú15, ú35
and ú49 respectively. ReTreeval costs ú40 for single user and Primary
site pack; ú60 for Secondary site pack. PortFolio costs ú29 for single
user and Primary site pack; ú45 for Secondary site packs. All prices are
+VAT +p&p.
9.06
Map Converter is a program for converting Ordnance Survey map data into
both Draw and Key Plus Map format. The package takes OS vector types,
such as NTF or Land-Line, and transfers them into Acorn vector format.
Unlike other packages of this type, the converter makes a point of
retaining all the layering within the OS data. Once exported into Key
Plus Map format, it can then be used for plotting data from Key Plus
files. This opens up to schools, and computer users generally, a wide
range of maps, from 1:2500 to 1:625000 scales, of the United Kingdom.
9.06
Key Map Editor is another product which offers an alternative range of
facilities for users to create their own Key Plus Maps for plotting
purposes. It also allows existing Key Plus maps to be edited to suit
particular requirements. One option is to take a vertical aerial
photograph, or an out-of-copyright map, scan in the image and then draw
the map on top before exporting it to map editor. Whether it is creating
a map of the school, your own town or the whole country, this tool will
open all sorts of possibilities.
9.06
OS Map Converter and Key Plus Map Editor are ú30 each +VAT +p&p from
SCA, or ú35 through Archive.
9.06
Nelson CD-ROM from Anglia Multimedia, is designed to help meet Key Stage
3 History. It contains 18 separate sections dealing with aspects of
Nelsonæs life and times. The user begins by landing on the deck of the
HMS Victory and moves through various parts of the ship examining
documents, artifacts and photographs. By clicking on any of the objects,
the user is taken through such things as life on board a battleship, the
history of the Navy, armaments, the lives of sailors, ship-building and
life at sea, etc. A document in Nelsonæs cabin leads on to a 35 minute
documentary on the Battle of Trafalgar. The CD-ROM contains animations,
video, paintings, audio and textual information about each section, and
specially commissioned photographs. The disc has been put together in
association with the National Maritime Museum, who allowed Anglia access
to areas of the Victory not normally open to the public. Nelson and His
Navy CD costs ú50 +VAT +p&p from Anglia Multimedia, or ú58 through
Archive.
9.06
Pentium-class processors are now available from Aleph One at reduced
prices. The top-of-the-range PC card features a Cyrix 5╫86 processor and
delivers Pentium-class performance, as well as software with enhanced
support for Windows 95 and sound emulation. Further software upgrades
are planned for release during 1996 including enhanced disc and video
drivers, support for the Linux operating system, and utilities for PC to
RISCáOS data exchange. The software upgrades are available to users of
all models of Acornæs PC cards and can be purchased for a nominal
charge. Aleph One customers will receive updates free of charge. The PC
5╫86 now costs ú499 +VAT +p&p from Aleph One, or ú586 through Archive.
9.06
Quipalarm Ö The Sonamara Quipalarm Q3 is an effective and robust
equipment alarm with built-in Éintelligentæ motion detectors to sense
when equipment is being disturbed. The alarm allows equipment to be used
on a normal day-to-day basis but issues a continuous ear-splitting alarm
if the equipment is being tampered with or removed. It fits to the
computer either externally by screws and locknuts, or internally by
adhesive tape. The power supply is a 9V battery fitted inside the
alarmæs casing. The Quipalarm costs ú59 +VAT +p&p from Sonamara, or ú67
through Archive.
9.06
Rcomp Ö Two new products from Rcomp... TheáKeyboard ShortCuts Utility,
is a small program, requiring only 32Kb of RAM, designed to help you
automate the RISC OS desktop. Keyboard shortcuts can be used to do
anything that a double-click would normally do, including opening
directories, loading programs, accessing floppy drives, etc. The program
features five utilities for defining, displaying and executing desktop
shortcuts. It also includes a multiboot utility with optional default
selections and time-outs. For owners of older machines, it provides some
of the features only available on the RiscPC.
9.06
Textures is a graphic effects extension for RISC OS containing over 40
professionally designed royalty-free textures for use with all major
graphics packages. They can be used as backgrounds for web pages, or
loaded onto Acornæs pinboard, as well as being used in programs such as
Photodesk, Studio 24, ProArtisan, etc.
9.06
Keyboard Shortcuts Utility costs ú15 fully inclusive from Rcomp, and
Textures costs ú12 for a single user or ú30 for a site licence from
Rcomp (no VAT).
9.06
Shakespeare comes to life with Topologikaæs ÉHow to be Bottom Ö The
Interactive Shakespeare Showæ. Originally commissioned by Londonæs
Barbican Centre and sponsored by Acorn, it aimed to give children a
multimedia look at the life and times of the Bard. Students can now get
involved in their own version of the show. Based on A Midsummer Nightæs
Dream, this multimedia resource comes on seven HD discs, giving students
an opportunity to create their own Shakespearian experience. The
material allows them to design four different stage sets as well as
their own poster. They can also create their own version of Puckæs
Spell, learn about Elizabethan musical instruments, listen to sound
samples and compose their own Elizabethan tunes. The pack also comes
with a complete set of the works of Shakespeare, as text files.
Topologika say that How to be Bottom will suit primary and secondary
students in English Language, Literature, Music and Design. The
Interactive Shakespeare Show needs RISC OS 3, a hard drive, plus 2Mb of
RAM for all parts of the pack, except Music in Shakespeareæs Time, which
needs 4Mb. It costs ú40 +VAT +p&p from Topologika, or ú45 through
Archive. The stage design element needs My World 2, available for ú39
+VAT +p&p from SEMERC. A free site licence is included, as is a voucher
to obtain a full working version of Music Box at a special discount.
9.06
RISCáOS 3.6 PRM Ö The new version of the PRM Volume 5 which now covers
RISCáOS 3.6, as well as RISCáOS 3.5, is available for ú31 inclusive
through Archive.
9.06
Tanzania CD-ROM, from Creative Curriculum Software, explores the life of
a Tanzanian village through the eyes of Elizabeth Mchald and her family,
who live and work in Sanawari. This multimedia resource consists of a
CD-ROM, video and book. They allow pupils of a wide range of ages and
abilities to explore life in a Tanzania village. The video stories have
clearly written and spoken subtitles; the CD-ROM takes the pupil into
more depth and wider issues; the book gives teachers and pupils a wealth
of ideas and information. Tanzania CD-ROM on its own costs ú49; the pack
including CD-ROM, Video and Book is ú69 for a single user; a site
licence costs ú99 Ö all prices +VAT +p&p. Through Archive, the CD-ROM on
its own costs ú55 and the CD-ROM, video and book are ú77.
9.06
The Calabash Pirates is a cross-curricula educational game for 7-11
year-olds. It introduces the user to Natty Nick, Soggy Sam, Lost Luke
and Dagger Jack, a bunch of pirates in search of gold. To find the gold,
the user has to solve mathematical and geographical puzzles requiring
problem-solving, decision-making and planning. The game should appeal to
children of a wide range of ages and abilities, and may be played again
and again Ö passage around and across the island is never as simple as
it seems. Roam through the screens of vivid graphics to find; Riddle of
the Sands; Patch the Sail; Tacking; Cannons and Raft Rescue. As well as
the obvious disciplines, the Calabash Pirates can be used (with the
accompanying study notes) to study the Tudors and Stuarts Ö the golden
age of pirates. The Calabash Pirates costs ú25.99 inc VAT +p&p from
Storm Educational Software, or ú25 through Archive.
9.06
ViVID 5000 is iSVæs latest version of their desktop resolution software.
ViVID 5000 is specially designed to run on Acornæs A5000 using 14 or 15
inch multisync monitors. It offers desktops of up to 2240╫2016 in size,
and includes 256 colour versions of most resolutions including, 1056╫832
and 1472╫ 1070 and can produce 1600╫1200 in 256 colours on some
machines. ViVID 5000 offers greyscale versions of all resolutions,
control of colour and contrast, as well as almost 100 screen modes.
ViVID costs ú16.50 including carriage (no VAT) or ú17 inc VAT through
Archive. Existing owners of ViVID20 can upgrade by returning their
master disc with a cheque for ú5 to iSV.
9.06
Review software received...
9.06
We have received review copies of the following:        ÅArt Lesson CD-
ROM(a), ÅCalabash Pirates(e), ÅESPáMidi Synthesiser(um),  ÅFreddy Teddy
Directions(e), ÅOS Map Converter & Key Plus Map Editor (e), ÅViVID
5000(u), ÅSpeaking Starspell(ew).
Product Highlights...
9.06
Gabriel Swords
9.06
I have blatantly given Gabriel the job of selling products by bringing
them to your attention! These are not new products, but they are ones
which he feels are worth bringing to your attention again. Ed.
9.06
Two clipart products have come to my notice this month. They are very
different in their style of drawings and in their appeal.
9.06
Food for Thought, from Sherston, is a collection of drawfiles on food
and related utensils. It comes on three discs with activity cards to
help pupils use the designs. Also included in the pack is a helpful
tutorial disc to enable you to make the most of the images. Drawfiles
come in full colour, grey images and outlines only, and include; fruit
and vegetables; meat, fish and poultry; cooking utensils; and scenes in
the kitchen, dining room and outside. Food for Thought is ú17.95 +VAT
+p&p from Sherston, or ú20 through Archive.
9.06
Split an Image, also from Sherston, is a collection of 100 cartoon
drawfiles of some of the best known people from politics, royalty,
sport, pop music, TV & film. Sherston say itæs aimed at 7-16 year olds,
but from what weæve seen of them, they could be used in a variety of
ways.
9.06
As well as the categories already mentioned, the collection is further
divided into bodies, hats, bubbles and shoulders. The idea being that
different Éheadsæ can be fitted onto different bodies, and can be given
different headgear. Although the cartoons were produced in 1992 and are,
as my son pointed out, too old to include the likes of Tony Blair and
the latest version of Michael Jackson, they have, nevertheless, worn
well. The beauty of caricatures is that they contain the most obvious
and easily distorted characteristics of their subjects. These are things
which donæt change that much over the years, which means that all of the
characters are easily recognisable Ö certainly my trained team of
quality controllers (two quite cynical children) had no problem deciding
who was who. They also had no problem using them to create some quite
amusing images.
9.06
As well as the three discs of images, thereæs a user guide and tutorial
disc which describes how images can be ungrouped and manipulated, and
how to assemble characters to various shoulders and bodies. There are
also four activity cards which give a step-by-step guide to using the
collection.
9.06
Split an Image costs ú17.95 +VAT +p&p, or ú20 through Archive.
9.06
9.06
a=Art, e=Education, m=Multimedia, u=Utility, w=wordprocessing/DTP.
9.06
If you would like to review any of these products, please contact the
Archive office. Potential reviewers will need to show that they would
use the product in a professional capacity or that they have some
knowledge of the particular field.áuá
9.06
3-Lib    22 Grays Crescent, Woodley, Berkshire, RG5 3EN. <http://
ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/slitchfield>
9.06
Abacus Training    29 Okus Grove, Upper Stratton, Swindon, Wilts, SN2
6QA. (01793¡723347) [01793¡723347]
9.06
Acorn Computers Ltd    Acorn House,
Vision Park, Histon, Cambridge, CB4 4AE. (01223¡254254) [01223¡254262]
9.06
Acorn¡by¡Post    13 Dennington Road, Wellingborough, Northants, NN8 2BR.
(01933¡279300)
9.06
    Peter Goater
9.06
Aleph One Ltd    The Old Courthouse, Bottisham, Cambridge, CB5 9BA.
(01223¡811679) [01223¡812713] <[e-mail]>
9.06
Alsystems (p11)    47 Winchester Road, Four Marks, Alton, Hampshire, GU34
5HG. (01420¡561111) <[e-mail]>
9.06
Alternative Publishing    Suite 1,
Pentagon House, 38 Washington Street, Glasgow, G3 8AZ. (0141¡248¡2322)
[0141¡248¡3638] <[e-mail]>
9.06
Anglia Multimedia    Anglia House, Norwich, NR1 3JG. (01603¡615151)
[01603¡631032]
9.06
ANT Ltd    P.O.Box 300, Cambridge, CB1 2EG. (01223¡567808) [01223¡567801]
<[e-mail]>
9.06
APDL    39 Knighton Park Road, Sydenham, London, SE26 5RN.
9.06
Applied Risc Technologies    Cambridge
Technopark, 645 Newmarket Road, Cambridge, CB5 8PB. (01223¡577800)
[01223¡577900] <sales@applied¡risc¡tech.co.uk>
9.06
Apricote Studios    2 Purls Bridge Farm, Manea, Cambridgeshire, PE15 0ND.
(01354¡680432)
9.06
Atomic Software    1 Fells Grove, Worsley, Manchester, M28 7JN
9.06
Beebug Ltd    117 Hatfield Road, St Albans, Herts, AL1 4JS.
(01727¡840303) [01727¡860263]
9.06
Brilliant Computing    P.O.Box 142,
Bradford, BD9 5NF. (01274¡497617) [01274¡497617]
<[e-mail]>
9.06
Clares Micro Supplies    98
Middlewich Road, Rudheath, Northwich, Cheshire, CW9 7DA. (01606¡48511)
[01606¡48512] <[e-mail]>
9.06
Colton Software    2 Signet Court, Swanns Road, Cambridge, CB5 8LA.
(01223¡311881) [01223¡312010] <[e-mail]>
9.06
Computer Concepts    Gaddesden Place, Hemel Hempstead, Herts, HP2 6EX.
(01442¡63933) [01442¡231632]
9.06
Creative Curriculum Software    5 Clover
Hill Road, Savile Park, Halifax, HX1 2YG. (01422¡340524) [01422¡346388]
<[e-mail]>
9.06
Data Store    6 Chatterton Road, Bromley, Kent. (0181¡460¡8991)
[0181¡313¡0400]
9.06
Datafile    71 Anson Road, Locking, Weston¡super¡Mare, Avon, BS24 7DQ.
(01934¡823005) <[e-mail]>
9.06
EesoxSuite 8C, Newton House, 147 St Neots Road, Hardwick, Cambridge,
CB3 7QJ. (01954¡212263) [01954¡212263]
9.06
Fabis Computing    Sarford House, Swadlincote, Derbyshire, DE11 9SL.
(01283¡552761)
9.06
IMS    Desktop Laminations, P.O.Box 332, Bristol, BS99 7XL.
(0117¡979¡9979)
9.06
Interactive Learning Productions Ltd      Third
Floor, North Street Court, North Street East, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1
8HD.
9.06
iSV Products (p15)    86,
Turnberry, Home Farm, Bracknell, Berks, RG12 8ZH. (01344¡55769)
9.06
Jonathan Duddington    6a Old Mill
Avenue, Coventry, CV4 7DY. (01203¡415535)
9.06
Keysoft (Gordon Key)    Ferndorf,
Tarporley Road, Norcott Brook, Warrington, Cheshire, WA4á4DY.
(0973¡674757)
9.06
Kudlian Soft    8 Barrow Road, Kenilworth, Warwickshire, CV8á1EH.
(01926¡851147)
9.06
Longman Logotron    124 Cambridge Science Park, Milton Road, Cambridge CB4
4ZS. (01223¡425558) [01223¡425349]
9.06
Minerva Systems    Minerva House, Baring Crescent, Exeter, EX1 1TL.
(01392¡437756) [01392¡421762]
9.06
Nash Pollock Publishing    32 Warwick
Street, Oxford, OX4 1SX (01865 247885) [01865 247885]
9.06
Pineapple Software    Suite13,
South Park Business Centre, 310 Green Lane, Ilford, Essex IG1 1XT.
(0181¡599¡1476) [0181¡598¡2343] <[e-mail]>
9.06
Rcomp    22 Robert Moffat, High Legh, Knutsford, Cheshire, WA16 6PS
(01925¡755043) [01925¡757377] <[e-mail]>
9.06
Repair Zone    421 Sprowston Road, Norwich, NR3 4EH. (01603¡400477)
9.06
SCA (Anglia Television)    PO Box 18,
Benfleet, Essex, SS7 1AZ.
9.06
Sherston Software    Angel House, Sherston, Malmesbury, Wilts. SN16 0LH.
(01666¡840433) [01666¡840048] Sibelius Software    75 Burleigh
Street, Cambridge, CB1 1DJ. (01223¡302765) [01223¡351947]
9.06
Simtec Electronics    Avondale
Drive, Tarleton, Preston, PR4 6AX. (01772¡812863) [01772¡816426]
9.06
Soft Rock Software    124 Marissal
Road, Henbury, Bristol, BS10 7NP. (0117¡949¡1634)
9.06
Sonamara    Torquay Road, Shaldon, Devon, TQ14 0AZ. (01626¡873866)
[01626¡297866]
9.06
Storm Educational Software    Coachmanæs
Quarters, Digby Road, Sherbourne, Dorset, DT9 3NN. (01935¡817699)
<[e-mail]>
9.06
Topologika    Islington Wharf, Penryn, Cornwall, TR10 8AT.
(01326¡377771) [01326¡377771] <[e-mail]>
9.06
UK Software    38 Midlands Estate, West End, Southampton, SO3 3AD.
(01703¡474681)
9.06
Uniqueway    42 Crwys Road, Cardiff, CF2 4NN.  (01222¡644611)
[01222¡644622] <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]>
9.06
WECC    Manor Hall, Sandy Lane, Leamington Spa, CV32 6RD. (01926¡413741)
[01926¡413748]
9.06
Yellowstone Educational Solutions      Welbeck
House, Welbeck Road, Luton, Beds. LU2 0HD. (01582¡584828) [01582¡562255]
9.06
Zenta Multimedia    10 Ravenhurst Drive, Birmingham, B43 7RS.
(0121¡358¡3054) [0121¡358¡5969]
9.06
Archive Monthly Disc
9.06
u FasterAct and WinSave Ö two utilities written by Ian Clark Ö see Help
Column, page 39.
9.06
u Pocket Book Column: various PD programs Ö see page 29.
9.06
u Report writing program for teachers from Robert Lytton Ö see Comment
Column, page 15.
9.06
u Scientific software from Chris Johnson Ö see Help Column, page 38.
9.06
u Starting Basic programs from Ray Favre Ö see page 63.
9.06
u Studio24Pro Ö sample paintings from Malcolm Banthorpe Ö see his review
on page 43.
9.06
u TaskWindow program from Robert Lytton Ö see article on page 33.
9.06
u Version 1.7 of Keith Sloanæs WMF->draw Ö see Charlie Woodbridgeæs
article on page 21.
9.06
Government Health Warning Ö Reading this could seriously affect your
spiritual health
9.06
öI just canæt believe in the kind of Éloving, personal Godæ you talk
about! I watched my mother die of cancer, and no loving God would allow
such suffering.ò I have received many comments like this and my heart
goes out to those who do suffer in such ways. If you are experiencing
such suffering in yourself or in a loved one, I wouldnæt want to do
anything other than stand alongside you in that suffering but although I
can understand perfectly why you react in that way, I have to say that
that is what it is, a reaction.
9.06
The first thing I would question is whether it is right to say that you
canæt (i.e. you wonæt) believe the truth of the Christian claims just
because there is one aspect of it that is very difficult to come to
terms with. (And I certainly would not try to pretend that I have an
Éansweræ to the problem of suffering.) If I can use a scientific
analogy, Iácannot understand how an electron can act as a particle one
minute and act as a wave the next Ö but it does, apparently! I just
cannot see how it can be possible, and yet I accept the quantum theory
of matter because the rest of the evidence forces me to accept it. I
cannot find a better logical explanation of the observable facts.
9.06
In the same way, as a Christian, I cannot say that I Éunderstandæ
suffering, and yet I cannot find any better explanation of the
observable facts of life. What is important, it seems to me, is that you
donæt say, öBecause I cannot cope with the idea of suffering and a God
of love, I will not consider the rest of the evidence.ò So, please at
least consider the Christian claims rather than turning away at the
first hurdle.
9.06
Anyway, what is the alternative? A different kind of god? Is there any
kind of god who could face the accusation of allowing innocent
suffering? The correspondent quoted above turned to Buddhism which
avoids the problem because it is virtually atheistic so that there is
no-one to Éblameæ for suffering.
9.06
The only logical alternative, it seems to me, is complete atheism. But
what are the implications of that? When you are in pain and you scream
out, öWhy?ò you just have to say to yourself, öDonæt be silly! That
question has no meaning. Thereæs nothing I can do about it and thereæs
no-one to blame, so I just have to grin and bear it.ò Alone in an empty
and savage universe!
9.06
What does a loving father do when his child is suffering? He holds the
child in his loving arms and receives the out-pouring of the childæs
anger and frustration. Does he then say, öItæs not my fault, son. Donæt
blame me!ò No, he says, öYes, I know it hurts, but I love you and I
wonæt leave you.ò
9.06
You may call me weak if you like, but when I am in pain, I turn to the
One who knows me, who loves me and who doesnæt mind if I shout out, öWhy
me, Lord?ò He is my loving, heavenly Father.
9.06
P.B.
9.06
Paul Beverley
9.06
Acorn leads the way, yet again...
9.06
It has to be said that Acorn does have a habit of leading into the
future. Think back to Acornæs hardware achievements... the BBC Micro,
the first ever RISC-based home computer, the first workable set-top box,
the fastest low-power processor in the world (StrongARM), and the first
sub $500 netsurfer computer.
9.06
But itæs not just the hardware. Acorn has lead in terms of forcing
education to face up to change. Think of the massive impact of the BBC
Micro and the Computer Literacy Project. Think of the effect of RISCáOS
as a user-friendly desktop that showed the way to others (e.g.
Windows95!). Think of the pioneer work in using multimedia in schools.
9.06
No limits to learning
9.06
OK, I know that Acorn has to sell things to survive, but put together
the set-top box, the Cambridge Trials, the Netsurfer, RISCáOS, RiscPC,
A7000 and the Pocket Book, and think of the educational significance of
it all. Education MUST stop and think of the significance of it all Ö it
is our future and our childrenæs future. They need to be educated, NOT
to be taught how to run Excel or Word for Windows!
9.06
Interesting times!
9.06
Norwich Computer Services    96a Vauxhall Street, Norwich, NR2 2SD.
(01603-766592) [01603-764011]
9.06
<[e-mail]>  OR  <[e-mail]>  OR
<[e-mail]>
9.06
http://www.cybervillage.co.uk/acorn/archive/
9.06
Fact-File
9.06
Key: (phone)áá[fax]áá<net>
9.06
PC Card Hold Up
9.06
Because of the popularity of Acornæs PC card special offer, a backlog
has developed. This is made worse by the fact that the majority of
people are keeping their old cards until their new ones are available.
We therefore need to pay Vector the full price for the cards, and only
get the refund when you send us your old PC card back! So, to speed the
whole thing up, we would like to bank cheques a few days before we
supply the new card to you. Our normal policy is only to bank cheques
and debit card accounts when we have the goods ready to send out but, in
this case, we hope you will accept this change of policy.áuá
9.06
Speak!
9.06
George Barnett
9.06
In Archive 8.9 p39, Simon Weaver wrote a comprehensive review of Speech
II. In my view, Speak is better than Speech II in all respects and, best
of all, itæs much cheaper at ú19.50 plus only ú10 for a site licence.
9.06
Jonathan Duddington has produced a splendid text reader and simple text
editor application. Text may be spoken continuously, or a word, a clause
or a single letter by clicking on the appropriate buttons. Load !Speak
and drag any text file onto the !Speak icon which appears on the
iconbar. The text is then loaded into the Speak screen in Homerton font
(this can be changed if required); click on the Play button and the
facilities mentioned above become available. Many shortcut keyclicks may
be programmed. Only about 150Kb is needed to run Speak and it will
therefore run on any Acorn RISC computer.
9.06
The Speak system is a big improvement over previous speech systems on
Acorn computers, using British speak rather than Dalek speak. The
PhonEdit module, a pronunciation exception editor, enables you to make a
distinction between words which are spelt the same but pronounced
differently. The system is already being used within various pieces of
educational software such as Talking Textease, TalkWrite and Writing
with Symbols. Should you wish to use it instead of Speech in Pendown or
Phases, there is a Speak module available and Screen installation
instructions.
9.06
There is a print facility and font selection which make it a very
useful, cheap and simple word processor. Put David Pillingæs Microspell
(ú10 Archive) on the iconbar and few pupils would require anything more
in the way of talking wordprocessors. Some of my pupils have found that
using it as a proof-reader has been a great help (and, to my special
needs pupils, a Godsend.)
9.06
A comprehensive fifteen page Readme file is supplied (which can be
printed out). I understand from the author that should there be
sufficient uptake by any Educational Authority, a very low price site
licence will be available.
9.06
Buy it from Jon Duddington, 6a Old Mill Avenue, Coventry, CV4 7DY,
(01203-415535), price ú19.50 inclusive.áuá
9.06
Bitfolio Edition 7 CD-ROM
9.06
Gabriel Swords
9.06
As already mentioned in the Products Available section, the Bitfolio 7
CD-ROM is a collection of over 10,000 clipart images. These are not
American imports, but home-grown ones. The collection is made up,
throughout, of vector graphics Ö so they can be ungrouped, re-coloured,
altered, combined with other images, and generally manipulated to suit
your needs.
9.06
There are about 44 categories, with some of these divided into sub-
categories. Subjects range from anatomy, animals and architecture to
shapes, sports, and transportation. Among some of the more unusual
groups, there are sections on sign language, interior design, defence
and healthcare. Thereæs also a section on world flags with each flag
shown flying and flat Ö I canæt vouch for this, but there must be every
flag you could ever want to use.
9.06
Each category has its own named directory and, inside each image, has an
alphanumeric code number. At first sight, you might think this is a
rather obscure way to store a collection of clipart, but not so. One of
the things that really annoys me about most clipart collections, is the
way that you have to look through endless files to find the image you
really want, even when they are named. It can be frustrating and time-
consuming, and you have to be in front of the computer to view them.
With Bitfolio 7, this is not a problem. Included in the price is a full
colour, 266 page book showing each image as a numbered thumb nail. All
you have to do is decide which picture you want, then open the relevant
directory on the CD, and go to the number shown in the catalogue. It
means you can browse the images away from the computer, and even take
the book away to show others whatæs in the collection.
9.06
Quality
9.06
Iæm sure most of us have come across clipart collections which look as
if theyæve been scrawled by a four year-old on tartrazine (no offence
meant to four year-olds!). I think we should expect a lot from
commercially available clipart Ö the images should be relevant, easily
accessible and well drawn. These are!
9.06
On the point of relevancy, all of the images in this collection are
modern designs and cover such a wide area that they will be usable in a
variety of contexts. Secondly, having the collection on CD means hard
drives donæt have to be cluttered with clipart which you may or may not
want. Of course, if you donæt have a CD youære going to be a bit stuck;
so my advice would be to get one soon Ö itæs worth having just for the
Bitfolio collection. Lastly, as to the quality of the drawings
themselves, I canæt really fault them. They have been drawn by
professional artists who display a high level of creativity Ö I would be
happy to use almost any of them in the material I produce
professionally.
9.06
If you only ever buy one clipart collection, this is probably the one to
buy Ö until, of course, something better comes along! Bitfolio 7 costs
ú80 +VAT +p&p (ú95.17) but see the previous page for an Archive special
offer.áuá
9.06
Special Offer...
9.06
Bitfolio 7 CD-ROM
9.06
Full price: ú95
9.06
Special offer price: ú75
9.06
This is a limited offer. We can buy 100 CDs at a special price, but when
they are gone, the offer is finished Ö unless we buy 200(!) Ö first
come, first served!
9.06
Alsystems
9.06
From 9.5 page 14
9.06
Comment Column
9.06
Bible stories for computer programmers Ö Part one: ÉIn the beginning...æ
9.06
REM >God$Slot.Creation
9.06
book$=öGenesisò
9.06
chapter%=1
9.06
CASEáday%áOF
9.06
áWHENá1:áLETáheaven%=TRUE
9.06
  LETáearth%=TRUE
9.06
ááPROC_light
9.06
ááLETáday%=FN_IsItLight(TRUE)
9.06
ááLETánight%á=áNOTáday%
9.06
áWHENá2:áLETáfirmament$=öHeavenò
9.06
áWHENá3:
9.06
ááREPEAT
9.06
ááPROC_gather_waters
9.06
ááUNTILádry_land%=TRUE
9.06
ááMOVEáland_x%,land_y%
9.06
ááPROC_plot_sprite(öplantò)
9.06
ááAPPENDáöfruitò
9.06
ááINSTALLáögrassò
9.06
áá
9.06
áWHENá4:
9.06
ááMOVEásky_x%,sky_y%
9.06
ááCIRCLEá200,200
9.06
ááPRINTáöTheáSunò
9.06
ááFORástar%=1áTOá10000000
9.06
ááPOINT(RND(1024),áRND(1240))
9.06
ááNEXTástar%
9.06
ááSYSáöSprite_Opò,,moon%áTOánight%
9.06
ááTIME$=ö1stáJaná0000ò
9.06
ááPROC_Vivaldi
9.06
ááREMáFouráSeasons!
9.06
áWHENá5:
9.06
ááREPEAT
9.06
áááPROC_living_creature
9.06
ááUNTILáwater$=öabundantòáANDáair$=
9.06
öabundantò
9.06
áWHENá6:
9.06
ááFILLáland%,beasts%
9.06
ááONáERRORáPROC_make_mankind
9.06
ááPROCreateá:áREMáReadáitáoutáloud!
9.06
áWHENá7:
9.06
ááWAITátwenty_four_hours%
9.06
ENDCASE
9.06
GOTO chapter_two%
9.06
REM He made the rules, so He can break them too!
9.06
END
9.06
Nigel Caplan, Leeds.
9.06
Confessions of an email addict Ö All this emailing is getting to me Ö
Iáspend ages emailing people because it is such good fun! Also, there is
a real danger of it creating a two-tier communications system because it
so easily takes precedence over letters. Since Iágot the ANT Suite
going, it is so easy to do emails that Iáhardly ever leave an email
unanswered overnight.
9.06
The speed and ease of sending emails, means that they tend to be shorter
than letters Ö you send an email when you think of something to say Ö so
because emails tend to be shorter than letters, they are quicker and
easier to answer. What is more, if you are taking the trouble to write a
letter, you tend to make it worthwhile, donæt you? A very frequent line
in the letters Iáreceive is öWhile Iæm writing, Iæd just like to
say...ò. That is quite understandable, but the longer the letter, the
more likely it is that it gets left öuntil Iácan find time to answer
itò. Sorry about this Ö itæs not deliberate, but Iæm only human!
9.06
Respond in haste, repent at leisure! Ö One danger of this, as
Iámentioned last month, was of sending an email in the heat of the
moment and regretting it later. That happened to a good friend of mine
just recently. He wrote a very stroppy email to someone in response to a
decision he disagreed with. Having written it, and got it out of his
(emotional) system, he deleted it (he thought) from his computer system.
Wrong! He had hit the wrong icon on the Voyager toolbar and the email
was sent anyway. It was extremely embarrassing, so take that as a
warning and donæt get caught out. If Iáam doing anything like that,
Iáprepare the message in Impression and save it as a separate document,
and then IáSave Text (with linefeeds and no styles) into Marcel, the ANT
Suiteæs mailer.
9.06
Declining standards (of English) Ö One thing Iáregret with emails is
that, because they are so informal, people tend to get very sloppy with
their use of English; grammar, syntax and punctuation. Iáthink that is a
shame. Iáalso donæt much care for the abbreviations that infect the
emails and newsgroups. They are not worth the time and/or transmission
time they save, IMHO. :-)
9.06
Declining standards Ö Whilst Iáam in ÉMoaning Minnieæ mode, Iáwill share
quite an unpleasant experience. As you well know, Iáwrite provocative
Godslot-type comments in the ifc (Ooops, sorry! inside front cover) of
the magazine. öWouldnæt it be goodò, Iáthought, öto find some other
Christians who frequent the Internet. Iácould email the Godslots to them
in draft form and see what they think.ò
9.06
So, how do you go about getting in touch with someone on the Internet
who has similar interests to you? You frequent the newsgroups Ö
Ébirdwatchingæ, ÉChicago-Bearsæ, ÉMetallicaæ, Éurban-transportæ Ö you
name it, itæs there Ö and the range is growing daily. Well, Iásearched
through the list of newsgroups and came up with Éalt.christnetæ and
Éalt.religion. christianæ. öThey should be a good place to startò,
Iá(naively) thought.
9.06
Iásubscribed and immediately (a serious newbie error!) posted my request
for help. A couple of hours later, Iálogged on again to see what Iámight
find. Iáfelt as if Iáhad descended into some sort of international
cesspit. What Iáfound myself reading was a barrage of abuse against the
church, against Christians, against God and against Jesus, using foul
language and sexual innuendo. Well, no, they generally didnæt bother
with innuendo but were sexually explicit, most often about Jesus and his
mother, Mary.
9.06
Iádo feel sorry for people who think it is clever to descend to these
sorts of depths but it also annoys me that they can get away with such
behaviour. Iávery much doubt whether they would get away with similar
abuse against Islam, Muslims and Allah!
9.06
(Iáhave just checked out Éalt.religion.islamæ and, surprise, surprise,
it seems to be just fairly level-headed discussion of Islam Ö no abuse
it sight.)
9.06
Best sig-art? Ö Iágot in trouble for encouraging email art because öit
chews up peopleæs phone billsò, Iáwas told, if there are too many large
art files flying around. Iádecided, therefore, that Iáwould reduce the
size of my own .sig. Originally, being a keen öNon-Designeræs Design
Bookò user, Iáhad my address etc ranged right and, to do that, Iáhad
padded it out with space characters. Iáthen changed it so that it was
ranged left again, albeit with a three-space indent. This reduced the
size by 125 bytes. So, what does that save? Well, on average, Iásend
about 24 emails a day, so thatæs 3Kb Iáhave saved. Great! That will save
me, err, about one second of transmission time which, at local daytime
rates, is 2p. Still, thatæs 10p a week, ú5 a year. Hmm, Iáthink Iæll go
back to my right-ranged .sig after all!
9.06
Anyway, here is a nice little piece of sig-art and that only occupies
126 bytes including the name and the separator Ö well done, John!
9.06
ÿ
9.06
John Dawson               @@
9.06
                          \/
9.06
[e-mail]   /(  )\
9.06
=========================m==m===
9.06
.sig separator Ö In case there are any other newbies out there, the
<hyphen><hyphen><space> above Johnæs name is deliberate Ö a special
convention. Donæt take the (invisible) space out like Iádid (the ever-
tidy editor!) because it is part of the convention and it wonæt work
without it. What is it for? Well, it is a special separator, so that
email software can detect where the real message ends and the .sig
begins. If you so choose, the software can then chop off the .sig and
not display it.
9.06
Message preparation Ö Having got used to using Impression with its
automatic spell-checking and its abbreviations, Iáwas finding it hard,
having to use a plain text editor, so Iádecided to use Impression and
save as text-with-linefeeds. That is OK to an extent, but Impression
puts in smart quotes which email doesnæt like.
9.06
My solution, therefore, is Impression Junior. This was distributed free
on an Acorn User disc, so there should not be any copyright problems.
Iáhave it set up so that it does not use smart quotes and so that, by
default, when Iáhit <ctrl-shift-T>, styles are off and linefeeds are on.
Also, the default document includes öCheers, Paul.ò plus my .sig. The
default document also uses a monospaced font (Corpus) at such a size
that the line length is just 70 characters. That way, when people quote
back my comments, the line length wonæt be too long.
9.06
Since Publisher is Filer_Run in my boot sequence, any files Iádouble-
click will load into Publisher rather than Junior. The only thing
Iácanæt do is <ctrl-C> to copy from a Publisher document and <ctrl-V>
back into Junior Ö bother! Still, when Iáam quoting from a Publisher
file, it probably has Énastiesæ in it, so what Iádo is save it without
styles or linefeeds into my ramdisc and load it into Edit. Then, using a
single Keystroke combination, Iástrip through it, turning smart quotes
into normal quotes, dashes into hyphens and pound signs into #æs. Then
Iádrop it into Junior.
9.06
(When Iástarted doing this, Iáwas using Publisher Plus 5.06 and so Iáwas
having to remember to use smart quotes (<shift-ctrl-\>, etc) in Plus and
unsmart quotes in Junior. What a relief to find that, in Plus 5.08 (and
Publisher 4.08), you type unsmart quotes anyway, and Publisher
automatically turns them into smarts Ö bliss!)
9.06
(On the negative side, Iáhave had a lot more crashes since IáÉupgradedæ
to 5.08. Has anyone else found that, or is it just coincidence?!)
9.06
Site and email quoting Ö If you are telling someone about a web site and
giving them the URL, or if you are suggesting they email someone, it
would be good to get into the habit of saying, öWhy not contact
mailto:[e-mail]?ò or öYou should see our wonderful new web site
at http://www.cybervillage .co.uk/acorn/archive/ò. The reason for being
sure to include the Émailto:æ and Éhttp:æ is that Éall good Internet
softwareæ (e.g. the ANT Suite), displays those URLs on screen in blue
so, if you do want to mail the person or visit the site, you just click
on the URL and away you go Ö easy or what?!
9.06
(Actually, Iáemailed this last piece of advice to a PC-user and his
response was that it would be nice to have software as integrated as the
ANT Suite. Does anyone know how Acorn Internet software compares with PC
equivalents Ö in both price and facilities?)
9.06
Ed.
9.06
Email misuse? Ö Iáwould be interested to hear what other readers think
about this...
9.06
Iáemailed [e-mail] to chase an order that was a month
overdue and received what seemed to be an automated response assuring me
of their good commercial practices. It advised me that if Iáwished to
trace the progress of an order, Iáshould email [e-mail].
Iáassumed that they were trying to centralise their customer service and
did as requested but received exactly the same automated message!
9.06
Iáfeel that this is an appalling misuse of email. It wasted my time,
delayed chasing the order by phone for a further two days and, for those
who pay directly for email services, it is a waste of money. Iáfeel that
the use of such automated services is the antithesis of spirit of the
system and that organizations should be strongly discouraged from such
practices. We would be much better off without any apparent email access
to this company.
9.06
Don Lewis <[e-mail]>
9.06
Iáagree entirely, Don, but Iáfind that Iáhave also tried to avoid
ringing the same company since they installed their automated answering
system. It is SO unfriendly, trying to remember which number to press,
and wondering whether to wait until the bitter end of the interminable
message in case it tells you something helpful. It canæt save much money
and, in my view, it creates SUCH a bad impression for customers. Neither
of these, to me, are signs of progress. What do others think? Ed.
9.06
PC card speed Ö People seem to want some form of comparative benchmark
timings for the various PC Cards now available. Whilst Iáwould not wish
to imply that the following details are definitive, they should at least
give an idea of how the various cards compare to one another when
running Windows.
9.06
These ratings were created using the Windows User benchmark program.
They were run on a 34Mb RiscPC with 16Mb allocated to the PC card. Both
PC partitions (drive C: 200Mb, drive D: 400MB) exist on SCSIádrives
attached to the computer via an Acorn MkIIIáSCSIácard. Windows 95 is
being booted. The figures are averages of five runs through the program.
9.06
Benchmark    Acorn    Aleph1    Acorn
Aleph1
9.06
    SX/33    DX2/80    DX4/100    5x86/100
9.06
Processor    4.6    15.5    21.5    36.5
9.06
Memory    4.1    8.2    9.3    12.2
9.06
Graphics    4.3    6.2    6.4    6.5
9.06
Disc    5.9    12.4    13.0    18.3
9.06
Windows Perf.    1.7    3.6    4.0
5.9
9.06
OVERALL    3.8    8.1    9.2    12.5
9.06
If one recalibrates these figures as percentage improvements over the
lower rated cards, we get:
9.06
From/To    DX2/80    DX4/100    5x86/100
9.06
SX/33    +113%    +142%    +229%
9.06
DX2/80    -    +14%    +54%
9.06
DX4/100    -    -    +36%
9.06
David Coronel, The Data Store, Bromley.
9.06
Personal Accounts from Apricote Ö Iáasked last month whether anyone
wanted to share their experiences of Personal Accounts, positive or
negative. Iáhavenæt had much response so far but all Iáhave had has been
very much in terms of strong support for an excellent product.
9.06
Ed.
9.06
Report Ö Thanks for publishing the review. It was good timing as
teachers will now be contemplating the prospect of report-writing
looming upon them... and Iáhope !Report will assist them.
9.06
Iáfelt the review was fair and Iáhave made alterations accordingly.
Iáregret Iáhave had little feedback or comments from users and would be
pleased to receive further requests or criticism.
9.06
However, Iáfeel that the power of Reportæs code system was not fully
conveyed in the review. In brief, when !Report comes across #She#, this
will be changed, depending upon the gender set, to She or He (the same
with #she#, #Her#, #her# etc). The code #Name# will also be changed to
the setting given in the name box.
9.06
Iáhave included a full version of Report (now Careware) for the Archive
monthly disc. If anyone would like a copy, please send an E-formatted
disc and p&p (or ú1) to me. If readers wish to pass a copy on to their
schoolæs IT service, Iáwould be delighted. (No, Iádonæt make a profit!)
9.06
Robert Lytton, 7 Helmsley Drive, West Park, Leeds LS16 5HY.
9.06
Internet Column
9.06
Dave Pantling
9.06
I chose an interesting time to become the Internet Columnist! It appears
that Acorn will be focusing much of their future development resources
onto Éreference designæ machines for Internet access. The ÉNetSurferæ,
for want of an official title, is being designed to provide a low-cost,
stand-alone system with internal modem, OS in ROM, and software for
Internet access.
9.06
Acorn has been contracted to design a range of such Éboxesæ for Oracle Ö
the Worldæs second biggest software developer. Why should Oracle be
interested in ARM-based machines? Well, particularly for the home
market, ARM machines have several distinct advantages.
9.06
First of all, RISCáOS is easy to use, especially for the newcomer to
computer technology, and therefore itæs easy to sell Ö assuming you can
get customers in front of the machine in the first place!
9.06
Secondly, the machine must sell into the U.S. market for $500 or less,
so it must be very cheap to manufacture. If the Internet access software
is in ROM, there is no need for such a machine to have either a floppy
drive or a hard drive. That removes two mechanical components for a
start (the bits that tend to go wrong first) and their interfaces! This
cuts manufacturing costs and warranty repair rates, both of which are
major contributors to the cost of a consumer item.
9.06
Thirdly, the unit must have a low component count. If you compare the
sparse terrain of a RiscPC motherboard with that of a PC motherboard,
you will see quite a difference Ö another plus point for Acornæs RISC
technology.
9.06
Point four is that an ARM-based machine wouldnæt require a fan. For a
domestic appliance which is going to be used in a living room, this is
an important consideration.
9.06
If this project proves successful, there could be hundreds of thousands
of RISCáOS machines (Oracle are talking of selling a million in the US)
selling through electrical retailers, and Acorn will become a household
word again as in the days of the BBC Micro. (Not sure about that, Dave.
They may be ÉAcorn insideæ, but I doubt that will be shown outside! Ed.)
Anyway, if <[e-mail]> keeps me informed, Iæll
keep you informed...
9.06
One thing you may be wondering is, if the ÉNetSurferæ doesnæt have any
permanent storage, how are people going to keep track of their mail and
news? Well, I can only assume that the network provider will have to
allow you to store things on the local server Ö but Iæm not sure I like
the idea of someone else Élooking afteræ all my files!
9.06
Sleaze and slime
9.06
Letæs face facts, if you give people the opportunity to say what they
like without any fear of personal confrontation, some people will take
advantage. The cloak of anonymity offered by email is an opportunity for
the Ébottom feedersæ of the Internet. If you expect to find the top 1%
on the Internet, you must also expect to find the bottom 1%.
9.06
Concerned parents wishing to control their childrenæs access to this
material have a dilemma. To prevent access, they need to know the
offending addresses and use the Éfilteræ option in their networking
software. This would be easy except for one thing Ö these pages arenæt
always clearly labelled.
9.06
The counter balance to this point is that some activities on the
Internet just wouldnæt be practicable without that level and ease of
communication. A case in point is ÉJoolieæs Jointæ, a web site devoted
to people with MS. People can join a mailing list to receive news and
information about the latest research, and respond to others on the
list. The time between asking a question and getting a response may only
be a couple of hours. By mail, the facility would be slow, cumbersome,
difficult to organise and very expensive. Participants could be (and
are) located anywhere in the world. Joolieæs Joint can be found at:
http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/town/square/ae218/
9.06
Cybervillage
9.06
One of the best independent Acorn sites Iæve come across is
Cybervillage, run by Malibran and Quantumsoft. It is home to a number of
commercial and special interest sites, and the usual links to all the
Acorn companies are supplemented with rarer sites run by hobbyists.
9.06
Digital Databank, the popular BBS, has a site here, with lots of
software to download and a variety of special interest areas. There is a
comprehensive list of dealers and developers, by geographical area,
allowing you to find the company nearest you. ÉHeard on the Netæ is my
favourite section. The cybervillagers scour the Internet looking for
information, rumours and hard facts, and then bring you the latest
highlights.
9.06
Archiveæs new Web Site!
9.06
We now have a web site of our own! To start with, it will just contain
brief excerpts from Archive, but in the future, we hope it will grow to
be a thriving site. Presently, you can read the latest Acorn news, find
out what special offers or discounts are currently available, read what
products are available, place small ads or just admire the pretty
graphics.
9.06
There are several sites offering just one of these facilities, but it
would be nice to get it all under the one roof. The site is very much in
its formative stages, so I am looking for comments and criticisms.
9.06
Now youæve read all that, Iæll tell you where the site is! The URL is:
9.06
http://www.cybervillage.co.uk/acorn/archive/
9.06
Iæm sorry that, once again, I havenæt been able to review ANTæs Internet
Suite. It arrived shortly before the last issue went to press, which is
too short a time for me to become familiar with it. Iæll do it next
month Ö I promise!
9.06
(The only thing Dave did say in an email today was that he was
transferring to using ANT Suite for mail and news because it is öfar
superior to Voyagerò. Ed.)
9.06
You can email me, [e-mail]. Alternatively, you can write to
me care of the Editor.áuá
9.06
No Limits to Learning
9.06
Geoff Lambrechts
9.06
Confounding everyone who expected the same old Acorn but with PCs as
well, Acorn Education went into the black at the BETT Show. They
announced their MediaRange and have since followed it up with a
conference called MediaFuture æ96.
9.06
Current practice?
9.06
In order to interpret the evolution of learning technologies proposed by
Acorn, it is important to start by establishing the current situation in
schools. There is lots of good practice already in schools in this
country.
9.06
My school is fortunate in being well resourced: we have 150 Pocket Books
(70 with staff), networked CD-ROMs, plenty of processing power
available, including multimedia RiscPCs and other PCs. This gives us a
4:1 pupil-computer ratio when you include the Pocket Books. There is
also internal email available on the network, access to foreign and
home-grown teletext, and three Internet access points of differing types
and uses. This means that we already have huge amounts of information
available to students from machines at school and at home. Some schools
have more, some schools have less and some can only dream of this level
of investment. For us, this is the present, and we are now being told
that the new technologies are going to give us more access to more and
more multimedia data, and more children will own their own palm top
computers that they can carry with them all the time!
9.06
Signs of change?
9.06
In 10 years spent teaching IT to children, I have never (I hope) been
driven simply by the latest Whiz Bang Technology. I do not intend to
allow Acornæs (or anyone elseæs) marketing to determine what I buy Ö
that would be the tail wagging the dog. However, by talking about the
MediaRange, Acorn have highlighted for me that education, and learning
through IT, are changing.
9.06
We are all concerned about the management of change, and any help from
industrial companies, such as Acorn, is very welcome. The only proviso,
however, is that our aim should be to improve the quality of the
studentsæ learning experience.
9.06
Acorn describe the MediaRange as being Éaáframework for technologyæ
rather than a list of products. Some of the ideas have been around for a
while but this initiative has moved things further.
9.06
The MediaRange suggests four categories of learning styles for the
latest media and gives a name to the type of products that fall into
each one.
9.06
1) Explore: öWatch and note with a MediaSurfer.ò
9.06
The learner is mostly passive and simply receives information. This may
be watching the television or reading a Worldwide Web page. If this is
all that is needed, Acorn argue that you do not need an expensive three-
piece desktop computer Ö just some form of box with a remote control and
a TV will be quite adequate.
9.06
They had an Online Media set-top box on the BETT stand as an example of
what this kind of hardware could be. Even though the Oracle deal was
announced on the first day of the show, nobody from Acorn was committing
themselves to a price or even talking much about the alleged Netsurfer.
9.06
Will there be something soon that talks to the Internet for a few
hundred pounds? It was suggested that MediaSurfers may also be connected
to the local school network. A configuration of cheap surfers in every
classroom could be a very effective way of delivering information,
especially if large amounts of data were readily available on a local
hard disc.
9.06
2) Interact: öChoose and do with a MediaSelector.ò
9.06
Here the student can decide where to go and what to do. If the software
enables the user to adapt the service to who they are and what they
want, then this will be a big plus, but if all we get is a series of
disconnected bits of data, children will probably just become more
confused. There are plenty of so-called interactive multimedia CD-ROMs
around, though not all of them are very interactive.
9.06
Perhaps we will be seeing personalised interactive television and
software piped into every school and living room. If we do, there has to
be a great deal of thought and effort to make it really useful, and we
must help the learner make sense of this exciting new information age.
9.06
Do we really need so many PCs anymore or can we help kids achieve with a
black box at the end of a piece of cable connected to the whole world?
9.06
3) Participate: öContribute and create with a MediaProcessor.ò
9.06
Children will learn more effectively if they are involved in what they
are doing Ö ÉI do, I understandæ. To do this with IT, they will have to
be able to create interactive documents and their own multimedia
presentations. They will want something like a computer with a keyboard
and a mouse. An A7000 painted black was used as an example of this at
BETT.
9.06
4) Originate: öDevise and develop with a MediaMaker.ò
9.06
Much of what children do with IT is reassembling bits of text and
clipart, and is not really creative. Plagiarism is nothing new Ö it is
so easy to use technology to copy rather than originate that we need to
find strategies to encourage originality. Children should be given the
chance to learn to develop new skills working with video, audio,
graphics and presentation. The RiscPC with video capture and editing
facilities is just the kind of tool that will allow children to create.
9.06
The missing link?
9.06
The MediaPad (i.e. the Pocket Book Ö on which I am writing this article
and which I will use, with a modem, to send it to Paul!), is the name
given to the portable computers that can link, i.e. fetch and carry
data. The concept of one per child (OPC) is becoming cheaper all the
time and should give everyone much wider IT opportunities. I have even
seen a Pocket Book attached to a Media Selector (set-top box), being
used as both an input and an output device, and I can certainly testify
to the value of providing our pupils and staff with Pocket Books. You
can apparently even have multimedia talking stories running on them.
(Yes, I can confirm that, Geoff. I saw Sherstonæs Talking Stories
running on a Pocket Book at BETT. Ed.)
9.06
Acorn already have products in most of the slots and are saying that the
MediaSurfers and MediaSelectors, with some sort of Education Online
service, will be available by Éthe third quarteræ of this year. If that
means the start of the school year in September, we should all start now
to think how we spend our money. Instead of thinking about which
computer to buy, we will have to decide what percentage should be spent
on Pocket Books and set-top boxes as well!
9.06
MediaFuture æ96 Conference
9.06
The appalling weather and the bad road conditions meant that several
people couldnæt make it, but over 70 people gave up their Saturday to
take part in a conference in Northampton on 27th January.
9.06
The delegates were a mixture of software publishers, writers, teachers
and lecturers. There were even some school children there. You may feel
that it is a bit odd to actually ask the young people who will be using
the new technologies what they think about it but, in fact, they spoke
as well as, if not better than, many of the so-called experts! They were
very clear that they wanted real choice rather than a restricted set of
options.
9.06
The day started with three presentations: Alastair Wells of Netherhall
School explained how, for his school, IT learning is moving into the
home and is on the move with the Pocket Book. Alastair is also involved
with the Cambridge interactive TV trial, and so has a good idea of where
the new technologies might be taking us.
9.06
Geoff Vincent, of Online Media, called for the right tools for the job
and identified a need for open standards, if this is all going to work
effectively.
9.06
Tony Wheeler, from TAG Developments, outlined how children can now
access lots of new forms of media, and how we must encourage and enable
them to be creative.
9.06
In the afternoon, we split into seminar groups to discuss a range of
questions. The conclusions reached should be available from Acorn
Educationæs web pages by now. It was clear from the conference that
something exciting is happening and that Acorn seem much more relaxed
and open and willing to share their ideas. As the conference chairman,
Martyn Wilson, IT Adviser for Hampshire, put it, ÉUK IT education is re-
defining itself and developing a new central role in the IT revolutionæ.
9.06
Summary
9.06
Things are changing rapidly and radically, and there is a need for
teachers to be more involved in this process of change. Those who have
to deliver, need to feel a sense of ownership. Teachers as a whole must
learn to ÉPlay to Winæ instead of ÉPlaying Not to Loseæ all of the time.
We must try to step outside our day-to-day challenges, and start to
think laterally.
9.06
Acorn have certainly initiated a debate and thrown down a challenge to
those of us concerned with learning, and they are not just going on
about Acorn product developments to the exclusion of everything else.
Acorn Education appears to be putting education and learning before
trying to sell us the latest bit of inappropriate business technology,
as everyone else is. I donæt think that MediaRange gives all the
answers, but it is definitely worth thinking about Ö and it may arrive
sooner than we think.
9.06
If you have any ideas, comments, etc, write to Geoff at: 6 Osprey Walk,
Buckingham, MU18á7JA or <[e-mail]>áuá
9.06
Club News
9.06
Sibelius Evening Ö This isnæt a computer club meeting, but is organised
by the Norwich & Norfolk Area Royal Society of Church Music. On 27th
February, 7.30 to 9.30 p.m., at Norwich School, Cathedral Close,
Norwich, there is a meeting entitled ÉNew Possibilities: Using the
computer for producing musical scores in a local church context.æ
Details from Miles Quick, 20 Bishopgate, Norwich, NR1 4AA. (01603-
662570)
9.06
(A company called Norwich Computer Services will also be represented
there! Ed.)
9.06
Suffolk Acorn Risc Club Ö The club meets every month, usually on the
second Thursday of the month, in Ipswich Central library (use the side
entrance in Old Foundry Road). Special events include: 14th March æ96 Ö
A Musical Evening with Sibelius Software Ö Sibelius Software will be
demonstrating their highly acclaimed music package and showing how to
enter music directly onto a score from a Midi keyboard.
9.06
11th April æ96 Ö Design Your Own Newsletter Ö Hints and tips on using
Draw, Paint and Impression.
9.06
9th May æ96 Ö AGM and a Special Surprise Attraction Ö The clubæs Annual
General Meeting, featuring a special bribe for attending.áuá
9.06
Advanced RISC Machines Column
9.06
Alex Singleton
9.06
Boy, this is hot! Iæm talking about one of these old-fashioned Pentiums
which, for some reason, come with a heat sink and fan. While Intel has
to be credited with the invention of the microprocessor, Iáfind it hard
to understand why the company is still developing processors which are
based on 1970sæ technology. As a result, many people envisage a major
swing in the industry away from Intel in the next few years ù it is
expected that the next version of Windows will be compiled to run on a
variety of processors like Windows NT does already.
9.06
Strong RiscPC before RiscPC 800
9.06
I think itæs highly likely that a StrongARM-based RiscPC will be
released before a RiscPC 800. This is because the first StrongARMs will
be available from ARMæs manufacturing partners on 5th February (i.e.
before you read this). However, it will be the summer before ART can get
its hands on an ARM810.
9.06
ARM deal with Oki
9.06
January 24th saw the announcement that Oki was licensing the ARM7TDMI
processor core. According to ARM, Oki will be using the cores to create
and sell controllers for car electronics and computer peripherals
(including disc drives, CD-ROM drives and printers). Furthermore, the
company plans to use the processor as the basis of future communications
products such as mobile phones.
9.06
According to ARMæs CEO and MD, Robin Saxby, öOki brings new expertise to
the ARM partnership and opens up new markets to the ARM architecture.ò
9.06
The ARM7TDMI is an Éeasy to integrateæ 32-bit RISC processor core with
Thumb and Embedded ICE architecture. What, you may ask, are they? Thumb
is an extension to ARM processors which, to put it simply, compresses
program instructions and makes the processor work faster when placed in
a machine with an 8 or 16-bit bus (when compared to an ordinary ARM).
EmbeddedICE enables the likes of Oki to test operating software on, say,
prototype mobile phones without wasting the phoneæs small memory with
test software. Instead, the mobileæs ARM processor is attached to a
desktop computer which performs the tests.
9.06
ARM C compilers
9.06
Tony Houghton is, apparently, waiting around rather a lot. As the writer
of the C++ Column, he finds himself using Acornæs C++ compiler rather
frequently. Because this compiler converts the C++ source code into C
and then compiles it, the process is relatively slow.
9.06
ARM has, for some time, marketed a C development environment for PC, Sun
and DEC Alpha computers. This emulates an ARM processor and enables
software to be tested before the intended hardware has been completed
(the EmbeddedICE method is different as it involves the finished
product). As I write, ARM is developing a C++ compiler for the
environment and ART will be licensing this in order to produce a RISC OS
compiler. According to Peter Bondar, ART hopes to finish it by the
middle of the year ù expect to see it at Acorn World.
9.06
Processor speed increase
9.06
My A3000 used to be the fastest personal computer in the world. As you
can see from the graph, calling an ARM 2 machine Éfastæ nowadays is
quite ridiculous. ARM estimates that the StrongARM range of processors
will start at at least 160MIPS but we should expect far higher speeds.
9.06
Contacting me
9.06
Feel free to drop me a line with any processor queries, or requests for
future coverage. Iæll try to do my best to please. My address is 31
Great Woodcote Park, Purley, Surrey CR8 3QU. Next month, the column will
be significantly longer, as I will be taking a technical look at the
first StrongARM processor.áuá
9.06
Vector Clipart File Conversion
9.06
Charlie Woodbridge
9.06
If, like me, you have a lot of clipart and yet never seem to have
enough, you may also have perused the computer magazine shelves in W H
Smithæs and feel a little aggrieved that other platforms seem to
regularly give away thousands of pieces of vector and bitmap clipart.
9.06
Recently, for example, one magazine gave away the Corel Christmas
Collection of 100 PhotoCD high quality pictures. I bought the magazine
for the CD¡ROM alone and picked up the photos for ú2.50. It was very
easy to convert them using the ever improving and useful ChangeFSI. Most
bitmap images given away will convert quite happily using ChangeFSI and
some real bargains can be found.
9.06
For a few pounds one can purchase ImageFS which does the conversions
quickly and Éin the backgroundæ, i.e. you double click on the image and
it loads into Paint or another sprite editor.
9.06
I much prefer vector graphics because you can manipulate them more
easily, and they can be enlarged and reduced with no loss in quality Ö
they also tend to be more compact. Vector graphics, however, have proven
a little more tricky to convert. On Archive Utilities Disc N║2, there
are programs called WMF->Draw, CGM->Draw and AiEps->Drw, as well as
programs to convert the other way too, all written by Keith Sloan. These
allowed you to convert .WMF and .CGM files quite easily and quickly.
(These programs are also on the Archive CD costing ú12. If you have the
CD already, youæve just saved yourself ú2 on buying the Utilities Disc!
Ed.)
9.06
All I had to do was:
9.06
1.    Copy .WMF files from a CD-ROM to my hard disk,
9.06
2.    Filetype them to &412 (.WMF) or &405 (.CGM),
9.06
3.    Double click on the file or drag it to the WMF->Draw icon on the
iconbar,
9.06
4.    Drag the drawfile icon from the save dialogue box to a new
directory or into an application,
9.06
5.    Look happily at my converted graphic Ö in true vector format.
9.06
I was very happy with this new-found source of quality graphics. For
example, I bought a magazine which was giving away 3003 quality .WMF
images on its Éfreeæ CD-ROM. I paid ú1.99, glanced at the magazine and
started converting the graphics. They are, of course, a little
Americanised; some I will never use but many will be useful and the
children at school enjoy using them too! Even if I only ever use 10%,
Iáwill still have paid only ú1.99 for 300 useful images.
9.06
I did get a little fed up though with copying files to my hard disk and
filetyping them and churning through the converting process, so I
started to look for ways to speed up the process. One method
Iádiscovered was that Keith Sloanæs programs cater for batch processing
Ö drag a set of files onto the programæs icon on the iconbar, tell it
where to save the converted drawfiles, and sit back while the computer
churns away Ö great! However, the program kept halting and reporting a
strange error Ö Éunknown function 105æ Ö and I had to either press
<return> or click OK. This did not, in any way, effect the quality of
the conversion Ö it was just a nuisance. Anyway, a heavy object on the
<enter> key solved the problem, and many files were processed quickly
without the need for my presence!
9.06
One slight irritation was that the drawfiles were named in upper case
and had part or all of the /WMF extension. A very useful PD utility
called Renamer (written by Simon Baas) came to the rescue and converted
the names to lower case and removed the extension Ö all very effectively
and efficiently. (!CASE2case, from Robert Lytton, on last monthæs
Archive disc, can be used for bulk name changing, e.g. the font names on
the Artworks CD can be changed to lower case in one fell drag. Ed.)
9.06
Then I saw another useful PD utility called CD_Type. This program will
enable the computer to know automatically the filetype of files on a PC
CD¡ROM. This means that I no longer have to copy the files to hard disk
and filetype them! Bliss. My boot file automatically runs CD_Type and
so, whenever I put in a PC CD-ROM, most of the files have appropriate
icons and can be viewed much more clearly on the Acorn directory system.
9.06
So now all I do to convert a graphic is:
9.06
1.    Open the CD-ROM directory window,
9.06
2.    Ensure that the appropriate conversion program has been run
(usually WMF->Draw),
9.06
3.    Double click on the file to convert,
9.06
4.    A save box appears (generated by WMF¡>Draw),
9.06
5.    Drag the drawfile from the save box to a directory or (more
impressively) drag the file directly into Draw or another application,
9.06
6.    Sit back and look longingly at the newly converted graphic.
9.06
All very easy, quick and I havenæt yet had a graphic fail to convert!
9.06
There are just two annoyances in this process. One is that most files
generate the Éunknown function 105æ error, and the second is that
dragging a file into a graphic frame in Style does not work correctly Ö
you just end up with a tiny graphic in the bottom left¡hand corner of
the frame. If the same converted file is loaded into Draw, grouped and
resaved, it works perfectly. I guess that this is a RISCáOS 2 to RISCáOS
3 problem, and have written to the author hoping that he will be able to
solve these two Éfeaturesæ, or that he perhaps has already done so.
Converted .CGM files already work perfectly.
9.06
I recently saw MetaConv (⌐Keysoft) advertised in Archive and bought a
copy hoping that it might deal better with RISCáOS 3 drawfiles. It takes
a different approach to converting the files. A file needs to be dragged
onto the program icon on the iconbar or into an already open MetaConv
window. The file is converted and then you can drag-save it. However,
Iáhave found that quite often the choice of colours is not as good as
WMF->Draw. For example, a bear was converted and came out pink with
MetaConv but came out brown (correctly coloured) using WMF¡>Draw. Also,
if the files are dragged directly into a Style graphic frame, they only
fill the bottom quarter of the frame Ö better than the files converted
using WMF->Draw, but still not right!
9.06
Of the two, I still prefer to use WMF->Draw. There may be times when
MetaConv will convert files which WMF->Draw cannot cope with, but I
havenæt found any yet!
9.06
I have used these programs on a 9Mb RiscPC 600 with internal IDE CD-ROM
drive and on an A4000 with an external Cumana CD-ROM drive.
9.06
As for the magazines purchased to get the CD¡ROMs, well they come in
handy for collage work at school!
9.06
I hope this article will help many of the Archive readers to make use of
this resource bank of cheap but high quality graphics.áuá
9.06
Mips
9.06
MetaConvertor
9.06
Rob Ives
9.06
A quick glance through the PC magazines on the shelf in W H Smiths will
soon reveal an enormous amount of Windows clipart. Much of it is in the
Windows Meta File format (.WMF) Ö the windows equivalent of drawfiles.
There are huge PD libraries of clips, ranging from superb quality
illustrations to some which make you think öWhy did they bother?ò They
cover every possible subject from animals to outer space.
9.06
MetaConvertor
9.06
MetaConvertor is a simple utility program which effortlessly converts
these files into drawfiles. The program comes on a single 800Kb disc
with a slip of paper containing the instructions. Double clicking on the
!MetaConv icon prompts you to enter your name, which is then permanently
recorded on the disc. The file can then be dragged to your hard disc or
used direct from the floppy.
9.06
Once loaded, it is simply a matter of dragging a suitable .WMF file onto
the programæs icon and, after a short while, it is converted and
displayed in the programæs window.
9.06
Program controls
9.06
As well as converting, the program provides a number of simple controls.
9.06
Flip Y is used to turn pictures over. (Shouldnæt it be Flip X?) Other
controls are used to control bitmaps which are included within the
metafile, in the same way that sprites can be included in drawfiles.
9.06
Once converted, the image can be saved using a standard RISCáOS save
box.
9.06
MetaConvertor in use
9.06
I tried MetaConvertor on a variety of files both from PD libraries and
from cover discs of PC magazines. The file typically converted in around
ten seconds (on an A3020) and could then be saved out as a drawfile. The
results could then be loaded into Draw and edited further. I had some
problems when I loaded the files into Vector and Impression; the
bounding boxes appeared to be in the wrong place or the wrong size.
Loading the files into Draw and saving them again seemed to sort it out.
9.06
One interesting side effect. The bike file as a Windows Meta File was
only 23672 bytes but the drawfile was 65736 bytes. Almost three times as
large! The fact that the drawfile !Squashes down to 23617 bytes (36% of
the original size) but the .WMF only squashes down to 21940 bytes (93%)
implies that .WMF files are already compressed. Perhaps clip art should
be stored as WMF files!
9.06
Some of the files that I came across contained only bitmap files, and
although these displayed perfectly well and loaded into Draw, I couldnæt
find a way to load the files into Paint. Draw and Vector both displayed
the sprites with no complaints but refused to export the bitmaps as
sprites.
9.06
Conclusions
9.06
MetaConvertor does its job admirably well. It is simple to use and
effective. At ú15.99, it offers good value for anybody with a supply of
Windows Meta Files. Perhaps future versions could convert other vector
file formats such as .EPS or .CGM, and a facility to convert drawfiles
to PC format vector files would be useful. MetaConvertor is only
available directly from KeySoft in Warrington.áuá
9.06
Small Ads
9.06
(Small ads for Acorn 32¡bit computers and related products are free for
subscribers but we reserve the right to publish all, part or none of the
material you send, as we think fit. Sending small ads (especially long
ones!) on disc is helpful but not essential. Ed.)
9.06
A3000, 2Mb RAM, RISC OS 3.11, 205Mb SCSI HD, colour monitor ú325,
external SCSI CD¡ROM drive ú135, Citizen 120D+ printer ú75 or ú495 for
everything, Fireball II and SWIV ú3 each, E¡Type 2 and Chocks Away ú7.50
each. Phone Jason on 0113¡230¡4906 weekends in Flat 2.12, or
<[e-mail]>.
9.06
A3000, 4Mb RISC OS 3.1, Midi I/O card, Acorn monitor and stand, ú200.
Collect or pay delivery. Phone Stevenage 01438¡365564 eves or
<[e-mail]>.
9.06
A3000, 4Mb RAM, RISC OS 3.1, ARM3, 240Mb HD, Eizo 9060S 14ö colour
monitor, Lindis SCSI card, PRES monitor plinth, external CD¡ROM drive,
Midi interface + sound sampler, VIDC enhancer, double podule expansion,
lots of software including PC Emulator ú750 o.n.o. Phone 01454¡772159.
9.06
A310, 2Mb RAM, RISC OS 3.1, ARM3, 20Mb SCSI HD, Phillips CM8833 monitor,
R/O 2 PRMs, buyer collects ú250 o.n.o. Phone 01260¡274780.
9.06
A310, 4Mb RAM, RISC OS 3.1, two floppy drives, Watford external disc
drive interface, AKF11 monitor ú175 o.n.o. Phone 01494¡672221.
9.06
A410/1, 4Mb, RISC OS 3.1, ARM3, 170Mb IDE HD, VIDC enhancer, 5╝ö floppy
interface, Acorn monitor, boxed with manuals ú400. Phone 0181¡536¡1238.
9.06
A420/1, 4Mb RAM, RISC OS 3.1, ARM3, 120Mb IDE HD, AKF12 colour monitor,
lots of software inc. Learning Curve, PC Emulator v1.8 ú460 o.n.o. Phone
01803¡527701.
9.06
A5000, 33MHz ARM3, 4Mb RAM, RISC OS 3.1, 160Mb IDE HD, 105Mb internal
IDE SyQuest, AKF18 multisync monitor ú750.  Phone 01981¡550450.
9.06
A5000, 4Mb RAM, RISC OS 3.1, 40Mb HD, AKF18 monitor, Learning Curve and
other software, manuals etc. ú500. Phone Les Lewis on 01795¡873¡200.
9.06
A5000, 4Mb RAM, RISC OS 3.1, 405Mb HD, Multisync monitor, Impression
Publisher, Genesis Pro, Poster, PC Emulator, many fonts ú750. Phone
Chris on 01424¡719569 or 01271¡850355.
9.06
AKF50 14ö HiRes multiscan, ex. cond. Possibly deliver in 0161(ish) area.
ú250 o.n.o. Call Gary on 0161¡280¡1437 eves or w/e.
9.06
AKF12 RGB monitor, reasonable offers. Phone 01392¡56028.
9.06
Aleph One 386PC Podule with 4M RAM + floating point co¡processor. Fits
A400 series, A5000, etc. !PC v1.15s + Windows accelerator + MS¡DOS 6.
ú200. Phone Keith on 0141¡630¡1938.
9.06
Draw Bender ú5, Back issue magazine cover discs, 1991 onwards of
Archimedes World, Acorn User and Acorn Computing ú1 each, Back issue
Risc User discs, 1995 onwards ú2 each, Almanac 3, boxed as new, offers?
Write to Jon Aylwin, 4 St Margarets Close, Hemydock, Devon, EX15 3XJ or
<[e-mail]>.
9.06
Eagle M2 multimedia card including AudioWorks, as new ú250, Dune 2 CD
ú25, Keystroke v3 ú12, ProArt 2 ú50, Compo v1.02 with Virtualise ú80,
Acorn 210Mb IDE HD ú80, Revelation ImagePro 24 ú25, ABC Compiler ú30.
All originals. Phone Pete on 01663¡733027.
9.06
PC Emulator, v1.8 ú15, Cumana SCSI interface card ú45, GammaPlot v2 ú15,
System Delta+ v2 ú25, Genesis v2 ú20, Investigating Local Industry ú20,
Cheat It Again Archie ú3, Chocks Away ú3, Sporting Triangles ú5, The Art
Machine 1 and 2 ú20, Word Up Word Down ú3, MS¡DOS Quick Reference ú5.
Phone 01737¡832159 eves.
9.06
PinPoint 2 ú30, Revelation imagePro24 ú30, Hutchinson Electronic
Encyclopedia Edition 2 ú15, Event (diary) ú5, Populous ú10, Times
Sampler CD¡ROM (DOS only) ú15, RISC OS 3 Style Guide ú5. Offers
considered. Phone David on 01752¡840027 after 5.
9.06
ProImage / AlterImage ú20, Genesis Project ú20, Compression ú15,
Keystroke ú10, Impressive ú5, BubbleHelp ú5, Printer sharer box ú10, two
slot backplane ú10, MS¡DOS 6.2 / Windows 3.11 ú15 + ú5 for manual, A5000
mouse ú5. Phone 01827¡330118 eves or w/e.
9.06
Psion games disc one (7 games) for Pocket Book, Pocket Book II & Psion
Series 3 or 3a ú20. Phone Mark after 6 on 01905¡754277.
9.06
RiscPC, including PC card. Phone 0631¡14984 or email
<[e-mail]> (Germany).
9.06
RiscPC 600, 33MHz, 4Mb DRAM, 2Mb VRAM, 425Mb HD, quad speed CD¡ROM
drive, 16¡bit sound card, AKF85 17ö monitor, PC486 card, 4 months old Ö
broke student needs money! Cost over ú2100, accept ú1700 o.n.o. Phone
Malcolm on 0161¡224¡1177 (room 2/13).
9.06
ScanLight 256 with interface card and support software ú80. Phone Geoff
on 01925¡491962.
9.06
Software, Fireworkz v1.07 ú59, ArcTerm 7 ú45, Compression ú16, Rhapsody
v1.04 ú19, Break 147/SuperPool ú15, Pacmania ú4, Bug Hunter in Space ú5,
Haunted House ú10, Trivial Pursuit ú4, Genesis Plus ú14, RISC OS 2 PRMs
ú33. Phone Rob on 01242¡231540 evenings.
9.06
Tech documentation for PB and 3/3a. Threeávery large A4 manuals (1440
pages) covering all elements of the machine: chip set, object oriented
core, file core, interface core, shared library, etc. ú40. Phone Mark
after 6 on 01905¡754277.
9.06
VTi MIDI/Sampler, and Sonor editor, connects to Econet socket, boxed as
new ú60. 4Mb SIMM for RiscPC ú75. Phone 0181¡864¡4805.
9.06
Wanted Ö A310 computers without monitors. About 10¡20 are needed. Fax
Guido Masoero in Torino, Italy on +39¡11¡280009.
9.06
Wanted Ö PAL encoder to work with A410/1. Phone Mark after 6 on
01905¡754277.áuá
9.06
Upgrading a RiscPC
9.06
Colin Buckland
9.06
When I first bought the RiscPC, I thought that all my troubles were at
an end. I could carry on with the excellent hardware and software I had
been using for years, and bring stuff home from school which runs (if
that is the word) only on a PC. The price of the PC card clinched the
matter Ö it didnæt sound like much extra for a reasonably specified PC.
9.06
Or so I thought. And to some extent, itæs true.
9.06
The need
9.06
The problem is that weæve all been spoiled for too long. Iæm accustomed
to running Sibelius 6 and Impression together, with Draw when required,
in 4Mb of RAM, and (on my old machine) from an 80Mb hard disc. It hadnæt
occurred to me that putting in a PC doesnæt stop at the processor.
9.06
Very soon, my RiscPC, which had seemed so capacious when running only
RISC OS applications, began to feel cramped. In fact, for a minimum
performance under Windows, you need 4Mb of RAM for the PC alone, and PC
users would shake their heads in wonder at the naivety of anyone who
tried to work from 80Mb, which was all I could dedicate to a hard disc
partition. Realistically, the PC needs 8Mb of RAM, and will be squeezed
with less than 100Mb of disc space, even for basics.
9.06
After taking the memory up to a total of 14Mb, I did manage to get the
PC Internet suite working under Windows. That was a first priority. Yes,
I know it can be done Énativeæ, but RISC OS Internet software is
byzantine in its complexity, and all the versions Iácome across seem
only to want to dial Demon (which hasnæt been heard of in Luxembourg),
so Iátook the easy way... thereæs still some work waiting to be done
here.
9.06
(I havenæt used any Internet software other than the ANT Internet Suite,
but I would not have said that it was complex Ö I find it very
straightforward to use. It is certainly aware of lots of providers other
than Demon. Iæve just checked with ANT, and they say it provides dialup
access to over 150 service providers in 40 different countries,
including INnet and CompuServe who have access in Luxembourg. They also
say that if a customer would like them to support a particular provider,
they will write a support script for them. They did so for me, for
Paston. Ed.)
9.06
On top of this, I really wanted a CD-ROM drive, and 16-bit sound to go
with it, and something just had to be done about that hard disc. With no
second slice, one drive bay free, two slots, and the possibility of
adding a MIDI interface to go with Sibelius, there seemed to be only one
alternative.
9.06
The solution
9.06
So the order went to NCS for a minnie card (for 16¡bit sound), a mixer
card (so that the PC and a CD-ROM drive could both use the sound
upgrade), and a PowerTec SCSI2 card from Alsystems with a Panasonic
writeable PD drive, to give CD access and 650Mb of storage. Itæs not
cheap, but some other readers may be contemplating this solution to the
Éspace and slotsæ problem, so how hard is it all to put together, and
does it fulfil its promise?
9.06
Assembly
9.06
The sound comes first because everything else goes in on top. The design
is not ideal, and the two rather postage-stamp-sized, fragile-looking
boards should really have been combined (I guess they have been in the
new RiscPC; thatæs what you get for being a trailblazer.) Anyway, one
card has to stand on top of the other like a sort of Christmas tree
under the podule slots; but the instructions are clear enough, and my
only real worry is whether or not it will foul a podule in the lower
slot because of its height Ö a candidate for judicious use of plastic
tape along the top. So far so good. The next bit is the amazing part.
9.06
Commissioning
9.06
You plug in the card (either slot in the lower slice). You screw in the
drive. You pretty well plug all the plugs into the only sockets theyæll
fit. You remember something about termination of a SCSI system, and set
that to Éonæ, on the back of the drive. Then you hold your breath (know
that feeling?) and switch on, looking forward to the really hair-raising
part where you have to configure it all and tell RISCáOS that itæs
there.
9.06
But you find that the card and the operating system are ahead of you.
There, without your intervention, is a CD-ROM icon on your iconbar. Put
in the Brandenburg Concertos, click, and away you go. Plug and Play is
actually advertised on some platforms Ö Iádidnæt expect such an easy
ride.
9.06
The only remaining task is to put in the 650 Mb cartridge (the drive
knows itæs not a CDdisc because of the holes in the caddy, I think),
insert the floppies provided, and work through, telling the machine what
you want. In my case, this was a 300Mb RISCáOS partition and the rest
for the PC.
9.06
This operation was totally painless except for the bit where I tried to
tell it that the second partition was DOS, and it replied with a
discouraging message Ö although it is, in fact, no problem. Both
partitions must be created for RISCáOS, and the !PCConfig application is
then used to create the PC drive as a dummy file occupying the whole of
the second partition. My only worry was that creating the second
partition might stomp all over the first, which was in service (and full
already), but Alsystemsæ telephone manners are as good as their software
is well designed, and their instructions clear, so my mind was rapidly
put at rest.
9.06
The software had already asked me whether I would like it to reconfigure
the machine for me, and when Iálooked again, I had two new hard drive
icons, one for each partition, to go with the disc icon already present.
I was in business. Curiously enough, however, you have to do *configure
CDroms 1 by hand, and you only find that out from the depths of the book
when something refuses to work. Most functions donæt seem to care.
9.06
Snags?
9.06
None really, except slight uncertainties, like the one groundless
anxiety I have already mentioned. Another concerned the Eesox utilities
provided by NCS with the drive. This contains some very useful
applications and a CD-ROM driver Ö now hereæs a problem. Iáthought I had
a driver already (on the card), and if Iáinstall another, will they
fight? Empirical investigation (software errors can nearly always be
remedied by taking out the offending files) showed that they didnæt, and
the Eesox driver made it possible to use the rather nice CD volume
control application provided on the disc. I have put a Filer_run command
for it into the !run file of the cd-player application, so that it
starts automatically.
9.06
(James Taylor advises... It is better to put the Eesox driver,
!EX_SCSI2, in your PreDesk directory so that it is run on startup.)
9.06
The final stage is the installation of the sound and CD drivers for
Windows, which is nine times as complicated as getting RISCáOS to work
with them (but by Windows standards is par for the course). Get a PC-
literate friend to help, if necessary.
9.06
One final snag did, however, concern PC operation. Under DOS/Windows,
the CD-ROM drive is drive E and the cartridge partition is drive D
(automatically). I found that starting Windows and mounting a CD¡ROM,
involved a large number of accesses to the D (i.e. cartridge) drive,
which necessitated swapping the disc and the cartridge an irritating
number of times. It occurred to me that the system was perhaps still
searching for the ROM on drive D, not E, so Iálooked in
c:\install\drivers\cdrom\. Sure enough, there were several references
which looked, for all the world, as if they were telling the system that
the CD¡ROM was drive D:. I changed them (all of them) to E: and the
problem disappeared.
9.06
Then I found Jim Nottinghamæs note in Archive 9.1 p42, saying not to do
that because it wonæt work Ö interesting! No problem so far, anyway, but
note that the change was made after everything was done and working, not
before. If you try it, back up the original files first.
9.06
Performance
9.06
I havenæt done any tests, but the drive seems able to run Slideshow and
the movie application without noticeable delay, and could be mistaken
for a hard disk a lot of the time. It would, I think, be wise to leave
time-critical stuff (!Boot, containing !System and !Scrap, together with
DOS, Windows, the permanent Windows swap file and any caches, e.g. for
Netscape) on the main HD. Otherwise, the only constraints are imposed by
planning; donæt put your Impression Publisher on the cartridge if you
want to listen to a CD-ROM while you work Ö they go in the same slot,
even though you play them from different icons, remember? Under Windows,
nearly everything works fine. The only exception is in the playing of PC
movie clips, where the action is jerky and the sound sometimes
intermittent. Does anyone know why? Maybe a 25MHz 486SX just isnæt quick
enough to keep up?
9.06
(James Taylor writes... I would be extremely surprised if a 25MHz 486SX
on a real PC was fast enough to run smooth, full motion video. In any
case, the earlier release of the 486SX cards had a Gemini 1 ASIC which
had a graphics bottleneck. The new batch of SX33s uses the Gemini 2
ASIC, so they will be better, but the best bet is to take up Acornæs
generous upgrade offer and get a DX2/66 for ú175, a DX4/100 for ú234, or
a 5x86/100 for ú351.)
9.06
Conclusion
9.06
It is never the right time to buy a computer or a peripheral, because
thereæll be one out next month, which is better, faster and cheaper. But
if now is the time, and your needs are like mine, I recommend the kit
described. The Alsystems PowerTec card, software and manual, in
particular, are a model of how these things should be.
9.06
If you want to compare notes and/or ask me for help, feel free to
contact me at 19, am Gronn, Roodt-sur-Syre, Luxembourg, L Ö 6917 or,
somewhat more quickly(!), as <[e-mail]>.áuá
9.06
RiscPC Sound
9.06
James Taylor
9.06
My aim in this article is to simplify the issues surrounding the subject
of getting sound out of a RiscPC. For native RISCáOS applications, this
is not really a problem, but getting sound out of the PC card is
extremely involved. I shall deal with the two major revisions of the
RiscPC, and several bits of related hardware that can be fitted to them,
including 16-bit minnie cards and audio mixers. Then I shall look
briefly at the PC card and some of the issues surrounding Midi,
SoundBlaster and the various versions of the PC card software.
9.06
16-bit sound cards
9.06
The initial range of RiscPCs (ACB15, 25 & 45) were the first computers
to have the new VIDC20. This chip can handle 16-bit sound but,
unfortunately, by the launch date, Acorn hadnæt quite finished the
necessary support hardware to give these machines 16-bit sound as
standard. They can, of course, subsequently be fitted with a 16-bit
sound card (sometimes called the minnie card) which gives them this
ability. However, once it is fitted, you may find that the Énoiseæ in
poor quality 8-bit sound samples stands out a little more than it did
before, due to the fact that it is no longer being passed through a
filter which indiscriminately smoothed out the noise and the, otherwise
desirable, high frequency sounds.
9.06
The minnie card comes with some modules to load in your boot sequence
and there is a configuration option provided to allow you to choose
between 8-bit, 16-bit and 16-bit oversampled modes of operation.
Unfortunately, the physical connection of the card disables the 8-bit
sound hardware (unless you have a suitable audio mixer board), so if you
configure the sound system to 8-bit, this will render your machine mute.
Naturally, with the sound system set to 16-bit, 8-bit sound is converted
as it is played back, so that everything continues to work. At the
expense of a little processor time, the 16-bit oversampled mode improves
8-bit playback using Éfractional interpolationæ. The 16-bit sound card
is available from NCS for ú71 and plugs onto some links on the
motherboard (including the infamous ÉLK14æ).
9.06
Audio mixers
9.06
A seemingly independent issue is how to get the output from an audio CD
into the RiscPCæs internal sound system so that this audio can come out
of the 3.5mm socket at the back of the computer and be fed into a set of
active speakers or a hi-fi. On the first generation of RiscPCs, this
requires you to fit an audio mixing board to take the output from the
back of your CD-ROM drive and feed it into a connection on the
motherboard... LK14, in fact.
9.06
NCS sell the Eesox audio mixing board for ú44. It fits onto the same
connections as the 16-bit sound card and provides further piggyback
connections so that the 16-bit sound card can be plugged in at the same
time. One other bonus of an audio mixer is that you can arrange for both
the 8-bit and the 16-bit sound systems to be fed into it in such a way
that you can configure back and forth between them and get 8¡bit sound
out via the mixer board.
9.06
LK14 adaptors
9.06
People who have a Cumana audio mixing board with their CD drive (such as
the 300iA) will find that, when they come to fit a 16-bit sound card,
the Cumana board, unlike the Eesox one, does not provide extra
connections for the 16-bit sound card.
9.06
Fortunately, Cumana also produce an adaptor which allows up to four
different things to be connected to LK14 simultaneously. When Cumana
went into liquidation, the LK14 adaptor was bought by the Hampshire
Microtechnology Centre and is now available from them on 01705-378266
for around ú15 +VAT +p&p.
9.06
Some LK14s have five pins and some have four, but it does not matter how
many pins you have because, as I understand it, anything you connect to
it will only require the first four. (If you find that your RiscPC
doesnæt have an LK14 at all, give us a ring and we will explain what to
do.)
9.06
The new RiscPCs
9.06
The second generation RiscPCs (ACB60, ACB70, ACB75) have both 16-bit
sound and an audio mixing point as standard, which means there is no
need to add a 16-bit minnie sound card or an audio mixer. All you need
to do, in order to feed the audio output from a music CD into the
internal sound system, is to find an audio lead with which to connect
your drive to the small white socket on the motherboard marked PL6 Ö
there isnæt an LK14 in sight. So, if you have a second generation
RiscPC, all the problems and fixes mentioned up to now do not apply.
9.06
CD audio leads
9.06
Unfortunately, the above mentioned audio leads are strangely hard to
come by. The quad speed Eesox ATAPI CD drives that NCS supply, all have
an audio lead with them, but the SCSI ones do not. We have tried
different cable suppliers but, curiously, the audio leads are the one
item most frequently missing from the kit. So if you want to be able to
play audio CDs from an internal CD-ROM drive, and do not wish to use the
socket on the front of the drive, you should state clearly on your order
that you wish to have the audio lead included and add an extra ú10 to
the price.
9.06
PC cards
9.06
It doesnæt actually matter which PC card you have, because you can get
sound from them all, but you do need the following two things: Version
1.91 or later of the PC card software AND 16-bit sound hardware, i.e. a
second generation RiscPC or a 16-bit sound card fitted to a first
generation RiscPC. The latest version of the PC card software can be
downloaded free from Aleph Oneæs ftp site at ftp://ftp.ant .co.uk/com/
aleph1, but first read the ReadMe file there to find out which files you
need to download. If you do not have Internet access, you can get the
latest version from us for ú2 to cover the cost of the disc, postage and
admin Ö just ask for Utilities Disc 9.
9.06
Configuration
9.06
The PC card software and related drivers require a fair amount of
setting up. Itæs easy when you know how (honestly!), but if you donæt,
it can take quite a while to get it right. My best advice would be that
this is the one piece of software where you really need to have read,
and have understood, the installation instructions before you start.
9.06
For sound, you must install the supplied sound drivers, etc, into
Windows and, if necessary, tinker with your autoexec.bat, config.sys and
system.ini files to get it all working. A description of this would take
several more pages, so I will leave it for now. (Perhaps Mike Clarkson
might like to cover this aspect in the RiscDOS column!) If you are
feeling depressed by all this, just remember that PC users have to
struggle with all this nightmare as a matter of course. (Save a soul
from PC hell Ö convert someone to Acorn today!)
9.06
SoundBlaster compatibility
9.06
In the beginning, PCs had no way of making any sound other than a simple
beep Ö they were just dumb, ugly boxes. (I am tempted to say öSo what
has changed?ò Ö but I wonæt.) An expansion card called SoundBlaster was
produced which has quickly become a sort of standard in the PC world and
SoundBlaster-compatible cards abound, but not all of them support all
the features of the Éstandardæ.
9.06
There are two main parts to this; sound sample playback and Midi
synthesis. The ability to play back a sound sample is something the
Acorn machines have had since 1987 and so the PC card software simply
passes on the PC cardæs request to play a sample (stored as a .WAV
waveform file on the PC side) to the native 16-bit sound hardware.
Currently, the PC sound drivers are written for 16-bit hardware only, so
until ESP produce an 8-bit version, first generation RiscPCs will need
the 16-bit sound card fitted for this to work. Midi playback is also
simply passed on to whatever Midi system you might have fitted.
9.06
MIDI synthesis
9.06
The second aspect of the SoundBlaster Éstandardæ is General Midi. Midi
is a means of communicating with musical instruments, reading what is
being played and controlling automatic playback. This includes
synthesizers which, when sent a Midi command, can play back the sound of
almost any instrument you can think of (and several you canæt) from a
vast store of sampled musical instruments. The General Midi standard
defines a basic set of 128 instruments so that all synthesizers play the
same instrument when given the same Midi command.
9.06
The more expensive SoundBlaster cards have a Midi synthesizer built onto
the card. More and more PC software is taking advantage of this because
it means that it does not then need to be distributed with large sound
samples. On the RiscPC, there are several alternatives if you need Midi
playback.
9.06
You can either get a Midi interface card, such as Wild Visionæs MidiMax
for ú82, and connect it to a General Midi keyboard/synthesizer, or you
could buy an Audio Dynamics PowerWAVE 50 for ú227 which has the Midi
synthesizer hardware on the card itself so you can plug its output
straight into an amplifier. However, the cheapest alternative by far, is
not to buy any hardware at all. The ESP software Midi synthesizer is a
software-only solution that does the job for just ú45. Although the
quality is not as good as the hardware solutions, this is certainly
adequate for people who just want to get full SoundBlaster support from
their PC cards. Also, ESP say that they are going to make some much
higher quality samples available in the near future.
9.06
The boss writes: We try to make the post-sales support that NCS gives as
comprehensive as possible. However, I hope you will understand if we
donæt provide the same level of support for the installation and setting
up of PC cards as we do for the RISCáOS side of things. This is partly
because we donæt have the necessary level of PC expertise and partly
because, in a sense, we only deal with the PC side under sufferance!
Obviously, if you have bought the computer from us as well as the PC
card, we will be able offer more support than if you have just bought
the PC card. On a DX2/66 at ú175, when you take carriage and admin into
account, we barely make a profit even when there is no engineer-time
taken up, so I hope you will agree that this policy is not unreasonable.
Ed.áuá
9.06
Pocket Book Column
9.06
Audrey Laski
9.06
Geraldæs Column
9.06
I was delighted to read Geraldæs Column last month, not just because of
his kind words about the Pocket Book Column. As he rightly realised, I
am a complete duffer with the spreadsheet, and I now know that the
cavalry will ride to the rescue of users that I canæt help. Indeed, I
have found mine to be the exact reverse of Geraldæs case; he is using
Abacus to handle his address book because he finds it more practicable
than Cards, whereas I am using Cards for all sorts of purposes, such as
recording expenditure, for which Iáoriginally thought I should want to
use Abacus. I did try, but I found it uncomfortable in too many ways.
Different strokes for different folks...
9.06
Not just a Fancy Organiser
9.06
As well as being an Abacus duffer, Iæm still a non¡programming user of
the Pocket Book. I was therefore somewhat shamed, as well as charmed, by
a splendid phrase in a letter from Ken Cowap, of Letchworth, who
acquired a Psion 3a last autumn. He says: É...what Iæve got is a full-
sized computer in a micro box rather than a fancy organiser with a few
useful gadgets added.æ Of course, it is a brilliant organiser; Iæve just
been initiating a sparky elderly relative into the use of hers, and her
excitement over what she can do just with Cards and Write is enchanting.
9.06
Recommendations
9.06
Ken sends an enthusiastic recommendation of Autoroute Express, (ÉFar and
away my best Christmas present this yearæ), a piece of software which
will run on a 3A, and so presumably a Pocket Book II, with 512Kb of RAM.
Given departure and destination points, with 7000 possible locations, it
will plot a route, giving a map and a list of timed instructions: Éthere
are almost limitless options controlling detail shown, infinitely
variable zoom and scan, just about any map magicæ.
9.06
(I wrote to Ken to ask him where we could buy this wonderful program. He
kindly rang to say that it was a Microsoft product, so you can get it at
Éall good Psion dealersæ for ú70 or less. However, Kenæs initial
euphoria has been tempered by the discovery that the map information is
somewhat out-of-date. His complaints to Microsoft UK have been passed on
to the US where the program is compiled. We await developments! Ed.)
9.06
Finding oneæs way around with a palmtop seems to be the current vogue,
because John Woodthorpe of Rugby is excited by version 3.8 of Steve
Litchfieldæs Mapper, obtainable from 3-Lib, Éwhich includes GPS (Global
Positioning Satellite) capabilities. With an appropriate GPS unit
connected to the S3a / PBII, you can find out exactly where in Great
Britain you are on a moving map display. The same goes for the larger
magnification version of Mapper that deals solely with London. Steve
says he tested the London version by wandering around on foot with it.
When he got lost, he turned everything on, waited 30 secs or so for the
satellite signal to be processed, and found out where he really was.æ
9.06
John also recommends a shareware program by Richard Schmidt,
(registration fee ú10), called Calc3a. This is an enriched version of
the built-in Calc; Éfeatures include: basic, scientific, programmer and
statistics calculations; hexadecimal, binary and octal conversions/
calculations; graphical XY plots; equation database; equation evaluator;
constants list; 26 memories, statistics memory and recall buffer; solver
for single unknown variable in an equation; and support for external
maths functions in OPL.æ This is far and away more than I would ever
need in a calculator, as my most sophisticated requirement at present is
an occasional square root, but for those with such needs, this sounds an
invaluable upgrade. John adds that he knows that the author is keen to
improve his product and will welcome suggestions for additional
features.
9.06
Internetworking
9.06
Another topic on which John has written to me is the growth of palmtop-
related sites on the World Wide Web. He suggests Psion Inc. at http://
www.psioninc .com as a good starting point. He also observes that it is
possible to access the WWW from a Psion 3A or Pocket Book II by using
Compuserve and two shareware programs: ReadCIS and WebCIS. He says,
ÉReadCIS is a superb Off Line Reader for accessing Compuserve with a
Psion or PB. I rely on it for picking up my email, and accessing the
Palmtop Forum on CompuServe (the friendliest and most helpful computing
community you could imagine) when travelling. Iæd wholeheartedly
recommend CIS membership to anyone with a Psion and a modem.æ
9.06
Dealing with $
9.06
Enquiries and partial solutions from several readers, together with John
Woodthorpeæs note on this problem last month, have prompted John of the
other side of the bed to a brief summary of the issues involved. He
writes:
9.06
ÉAny filing system imposes a syntax for allowable filenames, and these
for MSDOS and ADFS are tiresomely non-overlapping. Normal ADFS allows a
maximum character length of ten characters, plus a filetype of three
hexadecimal digits, whereas MSDOS allows twelve characters including a
É.æ separator and a three character extension, but does not possess an
analogue to ADFSæs filetype. Moreover, MSDOS allows certain characters
in filenames, notably É.æ and É$æ, that ADFS excludes. !PocketFS allows
filenames to be transferred to and from the Pocket Book and
transliterates É.æ and É$æ in the Pocket Bookæs filing system
respectively to É/æ and É<æ and vice-versa. (Also É%æ to É;æ, but I
havenæt looked at the others.) Getting the right literals into the
Pocket Book filenames, then, is straightforward. However:
9.06
1) If the MSDOS filename is longer than six characters, the extension
will overflow and the two intended files abcdefgh/OPL and abcdefgh/OPO
will overwrite one another as the ADFS copying mechanisms get hold of
them. This can be confusing if you have not thought through a sensible
sequence of copying and renaming.
9.06
2) Spark unpacking filenames with É.æs in them from an MSDOS disc
substitutes É_æ rather than É/æ, so again you have to watch carefully
what you are doing.
9.06
I donæt have one of the PD applications that allows longer filenames in
ADFS, so I donæt know if they would help.
9.06
(For those who like to write scripts, the mapping is in PRM. 2-327, and
also *DOSMap 2-336 may help with the other problem; you will need to
define types corresponding to .OPL etc, and I make no guarantees that
!PocketFS wonæt screw things up.)æ
9.06
Endnote
9.06
As regular readers of the column know, I usually mention the location of
correspondents, but donæt give an address. I am stumped this month by
two correspondents who emailed Archive, and might be anywhere in the
.uk. Iæd be grateful for an indication of town in such messages; anyway,
since I am not yet on the Net, it must be quicker to snailmail me
directly at 18 Ebury Street, London, SW1W OLU, than to email Paul, who
then has to snailmail me.áuá
9.06
Puzzle Corner
9.06
Colin Singleton
9.06
I am pleased to report a recovery of interest in this column which, if
Paul can continue to find the space, should be safe for some time yet.
Just one reader Ö not on the leader board Ö has expressed Émixed
feelingsæ about the League Table Ö other comments have been neutral,
non-existent, or favourable, so Iáwill continue it for the time being.
Three new names appeared on the full list last month, and the leader
board opposite shows all with smoothed averages over 10.
9.06
The latest winners ...
9.06
(46) Prime Square
9.06
An excellent entry to E T Emmsæ puzzle, and several readers found
solutions higher than order 11. The prize goes to Lawrence Howe of
Romford, Essex.
9.06
(47Ö49) First Ö Second Ö Third
9.06
Several partially-correct entries, but only four all-correct. Most found
all six solutions to Third. Several readers mentioned the name Ramanujan
Ö you are well educated! Barry Harrison of Middlesborough wins the
prize.
9.06
... last monthæs answers ...
9.06
(50) Infinite Roots
9.06
I am sorry to disappoint those readers who were hoping for a neat
mathematical proof Ö I have only Ramanujanæs assurance (third hand) that
he proved it! Given the general formula
9.06
we are required to evaluate S2. It is clear that Siá=á┌(1á+ái╖Si+1) and
Si+1á=á(Si+1)(Siù1)/iá which eliminates the infinite series, but doesnæt
help much. We can show that if Siá=ái+1 for any given iá>á0, then it is
true for all subsequent values of i, but evaluating S1 is no easier than
evaluating S2!
9.06
We can evaluate the finite series consisting of the first 60 or so
square root terms with a wild guess as to the value of the infinite part
of the series further to the right. No matter how wild our guess, we
find that, within the calculation limits of the machine, the series
evaluates to i+1. The answer to the puzzle is 3.
9.06
If any reader discovers a watertight proof, I will publish it next
month.
9.06
(51) Interesting!
9.06
If there are some Uninteresting Numbers, then that set must include a
smallest uninteresting number. This number, for that very reason, is
interesting, and therefore does not belong to the set! A set of numbers
with no smallest member cannot exist Ö hence there are no uninteresting
numbers. That is, perhaps, a bit formal for this column, but I am sure
you get the gist of it!
9.06
(52) The Vicaræs age
9.06
The number 2450 has factors 2╫5╫5╫7╫7, hence there are (within reason)
just six possible trios for the ages of the congregation (2,á25,á49)
(5,á10,á49) (5,á7,á70) (7,á7,á50) (5,á5,á98) and (7,á10,á35). The
corresponding ages of the Verger are 38, 32, 41, 32, 54 and 26. Since
the Vicar, knowing the Vergeræs age, could not deduce the other three
ages, the Verger must be 32 and the others either (5,á10,á49) or
(7,á7,á50). Knowing that the Vicar is older than any of the others, we
can only resolve the problem if he is 50, and the congregation are
(5,á10,á49).
9.06
(53) More Pandigitals
9.06
You need to find all the solutions to the general problem with a ratio
<10. You can deduce first that the two numbers must each have five
digits. The only ratio with a unique solution is seven, giving
14076á╫á7á=á98532. On reflection, perhaps this is not quite a quickie!
9.06
... this monthæs prize puzzle ...
9.06
(54) The Battle of Hastings
9.06
Dr Riha, an old friend of this column, submitted this puzzle, which he
found in the Leeds University Reporter in 1981, but it is actually much
older. It was devised by H E Dudeney early this century, and pirated by
Sam Loyd for an American magazine. Loydæs version (abbreviated) first.
9.06
The men of Harold stood well together, as was their wont, and formed
thirteen squares, with like numbers of men in every square. When Harold
threw himself into the fray the Saxons were one mighty square of men.
[In other words, find integers A and B so that B▓á=á13╫A▓á+á1]
9.06
In Dudeneyæs version there were initially 61 squares instead of 13. This
is much more difficult, but he solved it long before the computer age!
9.06
... and this monthæs prize quickies ...
9.06
(55) More Cubes
9.06
Following the theme of puzzle (47), what is the smallest number which is
the sum of three different cubes in two different ways?
9.06
(56) Angles
9.06
This is a modification of a puzzle by Lewis Carroll. A triangle has
angles (in degrees) 360îA 360îB and 360îC where A, B and C are integers,
not necessarily different. If the smallest angle is as small as
possible, what are the angles?
9.06
(57) Children
9.06
The children in a Junior School class form a queue in single file. If
they do so in random order, the chance that the first five in the queue
will all be girls is exactly ╜. How many children are there, and how
many are girls?
9.06
And finally ...
9.06
A number of readers have sent suggestions for puzzles Ö Thank you! Most
will be used (possibly modified) in due course, so please keep them
coming. Solutions etc, to me, please, at 41 St Quentin Drive, Sheffield,
S17 4PN. Solutions by Friday 8th March.áuá
9.06
Task Windows
9.06
Robert Lytton
9.06
Event driven programming is a joy, especially when you just want to add
this or that extra feature or window to your program. Calling WimpPoll
after every action is also very convenient. However, if the action is
going to take a long time (and you donæt want to force the user to watch
the hourglass), trying to call WimpPoll plenty of times during the
action can be very difficult to achieve, even if the action is very
simple and slow.
9.06
Under the auspices of the wimp, you can set up a task window where you
can run a single-tasking program under the full control of your Wimp
program. The wonderful thing about task windows is that they do not need
to call WimpPoll, nor do they have any concerns apart from their own
task! The wimp will automatically interrupt the task periodically and
then re-engage it after doing its round of the desktop. The task will
know nothing about this interrupt, while the desktop and applications
carry on working in the multitasking environment!
9.06
So how do you use them?
9.06
First of all, you write the program that will run in a task window. You
will need INPUT statements if you need to send data to the program, and
PRINT statements if you need to send any results back. What goes on in
the rest of the program is up to you! When the TaskWindow program gets
to an INPUT statement, it will wait for an input, not from the keyboard,
but sent by your Wimp program. When TaskWindow gets to a PRINT
statement, it will not print it to the screen, but instead it will print
the message, value, etc, back to your Wimp program.
9.06
On the Wimp program side, things are a little more involved. First of
all, you must run the TaskWindow as a Échildæ. Then you can send
messages to its INPUT statement using Wimp Messages and receive messages
from its PRINT statements, also through wimp messages. Then, at the end,
you kill it(!). You can also suspend it and do other useful things.
9.06
The TaskWindow program
9.06
This may be written in any language, but attention to the INPUT part
needs to be made.
9.06
The INPUT statements should not echo to the screen, or this will be sent
to the Wimp program as a ChildAnswer$. In Basic, use GET and PRINT, and
in Assembler, use SWI öOS_ReadCò or SWI öOS_ReadUnsignedò with SWI
öOS_WriteCò and SWI öOS_NewLineò.
9.06
The Wimp program
9.06
PROCInitialVariables: This sets up a few global variables. Channel% and
MyChild% have been set up to 0, so as not to confuse PROCWimpCloseDown
in case of early errors! Files must be opened by the Wimp program and
the value sent to TaskWindow (Channel%) so that they may be closed in
the event of an error (it is far easier this way). When you close a file
channel, set Channel%=0 to nullify it again and the same with Child%.
9.06
DEFPROCWimpCloseDown: This closes any files opened and kills any
children alive! Make sure you state all channels and children ever used
(global variables). If they are already closed or killed, they should be
0 and will be ignored!
9.06
DEFFNStartChild(Child$): This will start the program name sent it as a
child and return a childhandle(!). (N.B. Add a !Run file line such as
öSet MyApp$Dir <Obey$Dir>ò so it knows where to find the program.)
9.06
PROCKillChild(RETURN Child%): This will kill the child whose handle is
given and set the handle to 0, to show it is no longer a valid
childhandle!
9.06
PROCSuspendChild(Child%): This will suspend the child given. This is
important so that the wimp does not give time to Taskwindow when it is
doing nothing.
9.06
PROCResumeChild(Child%): The opposite of the above.
9.06
PROCTaskWindowInput(string$,Child%): This will send the string given to
the child stated. The child will then have something to INPUT, if it has
been waiting. You must make sure it is what the Child is expecting!
9.06
PROCWimpPollMessages: Should be part of your WimpPoll answer to event
type 17/18 message &808C1.
9.06
PROCTaskWindowOutput(ChildAnswer$): This is the reply PRINTed from
TaskWindow and should be acted upon appropriately!
9.06
... and thatæs all you need! If you are unsure of anything, do please
drop me a line at 7 Helmsley Drive, West Park, Leeds LS16 5HY.áuá
9.06
REM An example TaskWindow program:
9.06
Channel%=VAL(FNGetInput)         :REM the channel opened by the Wimp
program
9.06
REPEAT
9.06
count%=0
9.06
áVariable1%=VAL(FNGetInput)      :REM receive INPUT from Wimp program
9.06
áVariable2%=VAL(FNGetInput)      :REM receive INPUT from Wimp program
9.06
áFOR loop1%=0 TO Variable1%
9.06
ááFOR loop2%=0 TO Variable2
9.06
ááácount%+=1
9.06
áááPRINT#Channel%,(STR$(loop1%+loop2%))
9.06
ááNEXT
9.06
áNEXT
9.06
áPRINT count%áá                  :REM send text Énumberæ
9.06
áPRINT öNext pleaseò             :REM and text Émessageæ to Wimp program
9.06
UNTIL 0áááááá                    :REM keep going until killed
9.06
ENDááááááá                       :REM The Wimp program will tidy up!
9.06
:
9.06
DEFFNGetInput
9.06
Str$=öò
9.06
REPEAT
9.06
áChar%=GETáááá                   :REM receive value sent from Wimp
program
9.06
áStr$=Str$+CHR$(Char%)           :REM as if from keyboard without screen
echo
9.06
UNTIL Char%=13
9.06
=Str$
9.06
REM TaskWindow Procedures for your Wimp program (for multiple children):
9.06
:
9.06
DEFPROCInitialVariables
9.06
DIM wimp% 255áá              :REM any block of memory will do!
9.06
Channel1%=0áá          á     :REM only if you will be opening files!
9.06
Channel2%=0áá          á     :REM Global variables!
9.06
MyChild1%=0ááá               :REM Handles for your children
9.06
MyChild2%=0ááá               :REM Global variables!
9.06
TaskNumber$=STR$~(task%)     :REM task% is the number returned by
9.06
:áááááááá                    :REM SYSöWimp_Initialiseò,200,&4B534154
9.06
ENDPROCááááá                 :REMáá,öMyAppòTO version%,task%
9.06
:
9.06
DEFPROCWimpCloseDownáá       :REM Called after an Error too!
9.06
PROCKillChild(MyChild1%)     :REM Need to include all children by handle
9.06
PROCKillChild(MyChild2%)
9.06
CLOSE#Channel1%ááá           :REM All channels by number if used
9.06
CLOSE#Channel2%
9.06
SYSöWimp_CloseDownò,task%,öTASKò
9.06
ENDPROC
9.06
:
9.06
DEFFNStartChild(Child$)
9.06
LOCAL Child%
9.06
$wimp%=ö*TaskWindow <MyApp$Dir>.ò+Child$+ö -wimpslot 16K -name
ò+Child$+ö -display -quit -task &ò+TaskNumber$
9.06
SYSöWimp_StartTaskò,wimp% TO Child%
9.06
=Child%
9.06
:
9.06
DEFPROCKillChild(RETURN Child%)
9.06
wimp%!0=20:wimp%!12=0:wimp%!16=&808C4
9.06
SYSöWimp_SendMessageò,17,wimp%,Child%
9.06
Child%=0ááááá                :REM this is to indicate the
9.06
ENDPROCáááááá                :REM child% is no longer valid
9.06
:
9.06
DEFPROCSuspendChild(Child%)
9.06
wimp%!0=20:wimp%!12=0:wimp%!16=&808C6
9.06
SYSöWimp_SendMessageò,17,wimp%,Child%
9.06
ENDPROC
9.06
:
9.06
DEFPROCResumeChild(Child%)
9.06
wimp%!0=20:wimp%!12=0:wimp%!16=&808C7
9.06
SYSöWimp_SendMessageò,17,wimp%,Child%
9.06
ENDPROC
9.06
:
9.06
DEFPROCTaskWindowInput(string$,Child%)
9.06
wimp%!0=(LEN(string$)+28) AND NOT 3
9.06
wimp%!12=0:wimp%!16=&808C0
9.06
wimp%!20=LEN(string$)+1
9.06
$(wimp%+24)=string$
9.06
SYSöWimp_SendMessageò,17,wimp%,Child%
9.06
ENDPROC
9.06
:
9.06
DEFPROCWimpPollMessagesá     :REM part of your WimpPoll loop
9.06
CASE wimp%!16 OFááá          :REM an event 17/18 PollMessages
9.06
áWHEN 0:Finish%=TRUE
9.06
    REM ...and all the others!
9.06
áWHEN &808C1
9.06
ááwimp%?((wimp%!20)+24)=13
9.06
ááPROCTaskWindowOutput($(wimp%+24))
9.06
ENDCASE
9.06
ENDPROC
9.06
:
9.06
DEFPROCTaskWindowOutput(ChildAnswer$)
9.06
REM ChildAnswer$ is the response from the child!
9.06
ENDPROC
9.06
Learn to Write with Claude and Maud
9.06
Christopher Jarman
9.06
Programs to help teachers and children in the art of good handwriting
are very rare. It is that second ÉRæ in the old three Rs which has, by
long tradition, been the neglected part of the curriculumæs secret
garden. So secret has it been, that since World War One there has been
little official help at all on the subject from successive Ministries of
Education.
9.06
In February æ94 (Archive 7.5), I had the task of evaluating Oak
Solutionæs ÉLettersæ. The letter shapes that it offered, were direct
from the 1913 LCC print script! It was as if no research had been done
into handwriting teaching since Kaiser Wilhelm wrote his orders to the
troops.
9.06
I admit that it is hard for software companies to obtain the best advice
on handwriting teaching Ö indeed it is quite hard for schools Ö but it
is not impossible. Writers such as Alfred Fairbank, Tom Barnard, Tom
Gourdie and Rosemary Sassoon have all contributed usefully to the
practical literature on the subject. I lecture to around 300 teachers
each year on the teaching of handwriting, and am constantly looking for
good up-to-date books and programs to recommend. Therefore, it was with
wild excitement that I feverishly opened Brilliant Computingæs latest
contribution to our national handwriting resources.
9.06
The package
9.06
The pack consists of a blue disc for earlier Archimedes computers, and a
black disc for the later ones and the RiscPC. This is a good idea at the
moment, when suppliers want to cover both markets, so one good mark for
that.
9.06
There is a 15-page manual, which is written as if to someone who has
arrived from another planet and seen a computer for the first time Ö
exactly how a manual should be Ö so another mark for Brilliant
Computing.
9.06
Also included are twelve black and white printed sheets of various
tracing and copying exercises. There is immediate reference to something
called a Émouse penæ on page 4 of the manual which I found intriguing,
because it looked like a very good idea for this package. However, the
pen is not included with it, although the manual did say öring for
detailsò. Iárang, and was told that there are supply problems at the
moment, but soon there may be one or two quite cheap versions available.
The program also works with the Touch Window, if you have one, and the
manual tells you about that too.
9.06
The program
9.06
Getting into the program is easy, especially if you put it onto a hard
disc first. You are warned at the start that, because of the sounds, it
takes a long time to load but I found it quite acceptable, especially
with the RiscPC. Once on the first page, you can choose the kind of
letter groups you need to practise and away you go.
9.06
A mouse called Claude runs the show, and a little owl called Maud acts
as the go-between. It is altogether very attractively presented and
highly motivating. With the mouse, or perhaps soon the mouse-pen, you
look at letters and you copy them in the way the program suggests. If
you go wrong, you are told very nicely and given endless more chances.
9.06
If you wish, you can choose from various options as to how you want to
be shown the correct movements. When you get them right, you are told
how clever you are and all kinds of lights flash. I am well past my
sell-by date but I loved that part!
9.06
My reservations
9.06
Brilliant Computing have taken some advice and have opted for Rosemary
Sassoonæs font as the basis for correct letter shapes. Now I like the
Sassoon Primary font, but it was designed, of course, for reading and
not for handwriting. Current thinking from most recognised handwriting
experts, and from OFSTED, is that handwriting should be taught joined-up
from the start. The National Curriculum itself demands a clear and
legible cursive style by level 3.
9.06
At the very least, the letter shapes need to be formed in a way which is
in preparation for joining. The design of the letters under this
heading, especially for beginners, is all important. The directions
shown as to how to construct the letters in Claude and Maude, are
generally fine but the shapes themselves are too static and print-like
to be very helpful in developing a cursive hand; this should always have
a slight forward slope.
9.06
Also, letters like coagdqs should never start with a slight upward
movement, but with a horizontal or even slight downward movement, i.e.
9.06
< correct
9.06
< incorrect
9.06
otherwise they tend to rise up above the level of the other letters.
This especially applies to c and s which is why small children often
write those two letters incorrectly larger than the rest.
9.06
On page two of the manual, it states that ÉClaude does not confine you
to a precise writing styleæ. This is not true, nor is it possible. Any
program or copybook set before the public inevitably presents one style
or another, or you would simply have a blank page. There is no such
thing as an inoffensive or neutral alphabet or font. In fact, most of
the infant script reading fonts used today, are the worst possible
models for the teaching of handwriting. So the question is, what is the
historic and fundamental style that should be shown to all our children
to start them off, in order to find a handwriting style of their own
eventually?
9.06
Brilliant Computing say that this is only version 1.0 of the program,
and that it will be possible to give teachers some choice of styles in
the future. They are working on a more cursive or pre-cursive style, and
it will be released shortly.
9.06
This is excellent news because it is a very well thought out program
indeed, easy to understand and use, very clever in its motivation, and
ingenious in the way it controls the teaching of letter shapes. With
just a tweak or two in the direction of joining from the start, and the
choice of a more cursive alphabet for beginners, and it could be a real
help to teachers in both nursery and infant classes for a long time.
Possibly until Kaiser Billæs descendants are writing cheques in our
common Euro currency!
9.06
Learn to Write with Claude and Maud is available from Brilliant
Computing and costs ú30 +VAT for a single user, and ú60 +VAT for a site
licence.áuá
9.06
Help!!!!
9.06
BiblePlan is a series of Édaily readingæ bookmarks that take you through
the Bible in one or two years. Simple but attractive. They are based on
our church reading plan and have gone down very well.
9.06
If anyone wants a copy of this, please send me an E¡formatted disc and
p&p (or ú1).
9.06
Robert Lytton, 7 Helmsley Drive, West Park, Leeds LS16 5HY.
9.06
Bridge programs Ö We are still getting requests for copies of Omar
Sharifæs Bridge. Has anyone got a copy they could donate so that we can
sell it for charity to someone who wants one? Or does someone have a
copy they want to sell? If so, send in a Small Ad and youæll find a
buyer, Iæve no doubt.
9.06
Ed.
9.06
Interview Peter Bondar Ö If you would like to interview Peter Bondar,
Head of ART, nowæs your chance. He has kindly agreed to do an ÉInternet
interviewæ. If you give us questions you would like to ask him (by
email, preferably, or on disc), we will collate them and give them to
Peter. He will send answers to me and I will then see if there are any
supplementaries I want to ask(!) and then I will publish the result on
the Archive web site, and in the magazine next month.
9.06
The Archive website can be found at http://www.cybervillage.co.uk/acorn/
archive/
9.06
If you want to take part, send in your questions immediately as I want
to do this within three or four days of the magazine dropping on your
doormats. N.B. The shorter and more succinct your question, the more
likely it is to be used. Neither of the two PBsæ has time to spend
digesting long rambling letters!
9.06
Ed.
9.06
Genealogy Ö It seems that Minerva are having one or two problems with
Ancestry II, so does anyone know of an alternative without going to PCs?
There was one I heard of once called !Family and both Paul and I think
we remember seeing it in Archive but neither of us can find it! Can
anyone help, please? Thanks.
9.06
Kate Crennell <[e-mail]>
9.06
Multifile searching Ö !LooknFind, on last monthæs Archive program disc,
is multitasking (only slows down the desktop when actually checking the
contents of a file on CD), can be given the filetypes to check, e.g.
text, CSV, Impression, etc, with ease and it can be given wildcard
strings!
9.06
I have used it to check text files inside archives found on CDs for
keywords such as ÉSerialæ with great success. Or you may like to search
your CSV files for ÉP\*Beverleyæ to find Éples,Diana Ross,The Beverleyæ
Oh well, try Éfind nextæ!
9.06
As with the ÉFind fileæ option from the directory display, you will be
informed of progress, how many files have actually been searched and
choices of ÉNextæ, ÉViewæ, ÉRunæ or ÉAbortæ. Also, Impression
directories are searched, run and viewed correctly!
9.06
Robert Lytton, 7 Helmsley Drive, West Park, Leeds LS16 5HY.
9.06
Network problems Ö I am running Acorn Access+ software on an A410/1 with
an I│ Etherlan 500 network card. This is connected to a PC network upon
which Arcshare Server 1.4-2c is running, in addition to the WFW3.11
network protocols. I am having difficulties with file corruption on my
A410/1 hard disc which look as if they are related to the network
traffic. Has anyone had any experience (good or bad) in this area?
9.06
Jack Dempsey, 16 Photinia Close, Branston, Lincoln, LN4 1QA.
<[e-mail]>
9.06
RapIDE Ö Has anyone had a chance to try out Yellowstoneæs high speed IDE
interface for RiscPC? If so, could you let us know what you think,
please?
9.06
Ed.
9.06
Rockfall Ö Has anyone come across a game called ÉRockfallæ. I have a
demo version and want to get hold of the real thing, if it exists. It
was produced, I think, by Matthias Seifert in Germany in 1991, by a
company called Soft Evolutions. Can anyone help me to trace it, please?
9.06
Lawrence Bernstone, The Firs, Brandis Corner, Holesworthy, EX22 7XZ.
(01409-221038)
9.06
Scientific software Ö Regular subscribers to Archive may recall that
some (considerable) time ago I asked readers to contribute their own
scientific software to produce a collection to be made available as
freeware discs. In the event, two discs were put together containing a
range of scientific and mathematical software. However, the
contributions dried up and I was never able to get anywhere near
producing another disc. I thought I would try to resurrect the idea, and
ask once again for anyone who has written any scientific-related
software, and would be willing for it to be put onto a disc for public
release, to contact me. In addition, if anyone has any ideas for any
sort of scientific or mathematical software, but feel they could not
write it themselves, perhaps they could also drop me a line?
9.06
I have a number of chemistry related applications of my own, although
some are admittedly rather specialised. I thought it might be an idea to
send at least some of these to Paul for inclusion on the monthly disc
when there is room. To start the ball rolling, I am sending two
applications this month, which were originally on one of the discs
mentioned above, but have been developed further, and the newer versions
are too big to fit on the original disc.
9.06
!Periodic is an application which shows (surprise, surprise) a periodic
table of the elements. Clicking on any element displays a range of
physical, electronic and thermodynamic properties for that particular
element. I would welcome feedback from users on what data could usefully
be included in such an application, and also how it could be extended to
be more functional. If users could actually supply me with data, that
would obviously save me a lot of time! I include in the archive a dummy
CSV data file with all the elements listed to enable data to be added.
Unavailable data can be left blank.
9.06
!Molweight is an application that allows you to enter a chemical
formula, in as near the normal way as is possible, using standard WIMP
writable icons, and calculates either the average or exact isotopic
molecular weight. There are a number of facilities, including user-
defined groups to simplify calculations on similar compounds, and
optional display of elemental per cent composition.
9.06
Over the next few months, I will send further physical chemistry-related
applications to Paul for inclusion on the monthly disc as space is
available. If you would like copies of the original two discs of
scientific software then either send me two discs and sufficient to
cover return postage, or simply send me ú1 to cover cost of discs and
postage.
9.06
Chris Johnson, 7 Lovedale Grove, Balerno, Edinburgh, EH14 7DR.
<[e-mail]> (note my new e-mail address)
9.06
Toggle-size trouble Ö Has anyone come across this one... ? Hold down
<shift> (on a RISCáOS 3 machine) and click the toggle-size icon on, say,
an Edit window. You should find that it only opens as far as, but not
obscuring, the iconbar. So far, no problem.
9.06
One day, on my RiscPC 600 at home, I noticed that ALL windows opened to
just over the iconbar. Pressing <shift>, however, allowed them to go to
the full window size. We looked at all the configuration settings and
boot sequences we could find, but couldnæt see what was causing it. We
therefore saved the configuration and did a <delete-poweron>. We
restored the configuration and the problem had disappeared! Any ideas
anyone?
9.06
Ed.
9.06
Wordz + HP Turbo Driver Ö Is anyone else trying to use Wordz on an A310
with RISC OS 3.1 and printing using an HP DeskJet 320 and a CC
TurboDriver? If so, have you managed to print in any font other than the
system font? Colton Software claim to have isolated a fault with Wordz
and Fireworkz when dealing with TurboDrivers but donæt seem to be doing
much about fixing it. So if anyone else out there has managed to get
different fonts running on their setup, Iæd be grateful for the tips.
9.06
Gavin Dobson, RAF Shawbury.
9.06
Windows-style saving Ö In Archive 9.1 p33, Tony Tolver described how he
used Acorns to run his business. One of the things he mentioned in the
closing paragraph is how he would like a method of saving files
something like the dialogue boxes used on Microsoft Windows. The program
called !WinSave, which I have given to Paul to put the monthly disc, is
my attempt at implementing such a system. Read the !Help file for
instructions. I thought it might be useful to someone somewhere.
9.06
(I have also included !FasterAct which adds lots of nice little buttons
to filer action windows to enable you to click and select the faster,
confirm, verbose, force and newer options.)
9.06
Ian Clark, Haxby, N. Yorks.
9.06
Elements and Nuclides
9.06
John Woodthorpe
9.06
I have a confession to make; Iæm fascinated by the Periodic Table and
all it represents, and collect software (and T-shirts!) related to it.
These two programs are superb examples of what can be done to present an
enormous amount of information on the behaviour of the elements. The
author, Roger Darlington, has spent the last seven years compiling the
data and writing these applications for his own enjoyment, and has now
decided to share them with us all at a ridiculously low cost via his
newly-named company, Atomic Software.
9.06
Each of the two applications, Elements and Nuclides, comes on an HD
floppy (but I presume 800Kb DD ones could be supplied on request) in a
plastic wallet with a few A4 pages of documentation, and costs ú9.95 for
one, or ú14.95 for both. To run them, you will need at least 2Mb of RAM
and a multisync monitor. I have tested them on suitably equipped A310,
A540 and A5000 machines, and I used a RiscPC 600 for this review.
Actually, I did discover a few problems, including one specific to the
RiscPC (the absence of mode 39 in my monitor definition file), but they
have all been resolved promptly by Roger Darlington. Indeed, he has made
substantial improvements over the weeks that we have been in contact for
this review.
9.06
In use
9.06
The most obvious thing you notice on starting either application is that
they donæt multitask. At first, I was disappointed, but there is so much
information on screen that it could become very cumbersome and crowded
in the desktop, without putting in a lot of effort to organise windows.
Some aspects would definitely benefit from multitasking; such as being
able to print the information directly via the RISC OS printer drivers
and selecting the parameters to display. Overall, though, it works well
as it is, and the author admits that he isnæt a WIMP programmer. That is
really the only criticism I can level at the programs, and itæs a rather
half-hearted complaint atáthat!
9.06
Elements
9.06
The paper documentation is minimal, but the application comes with a
comprehensive Help file, and contains Ovation and text files explaining
some of the terms used. The screen for Elements displays the
conventional Periodic Table with control knobs, a text area, a display
of the selected property and a thermometer showing important
temperatures for the selected element (see overleaf). Each display
region changes to reflect the element in question when the cursor is
moved, giving a comprehensive collection of information that can be
expanded with a mouse click.
9.06
The most useful piece of paper that was supplied lists the properties
that can be displayed, including specific heat capacity, crystal cell
sides, ionisation potentials, density, atomic mass, and many others.
Selecting these in the program is a little tricky at first, consisting
of clicking in one of the Écontrol knobæ areas to rotate a line pointer,
but this has been improved considerably recently. The great feature is
that there are two of these pointers enabling you to plot two properties
against each other (see below), and any screen can be saved as a sprite
by pressing the * key on the numeric keypad. There are some suggestions
of interesting plots to work through, which could form the basis of
classroom discussion or individual worksheets for students investigating
the behaviour of the elements.
9.06
Nuclides
9.06
Here the application splits into two parts; one a comprehensive tutorial
on several aspects of nuclear properties, and the other a Segre chart
showing all the isotopes of the elements and their decay products (see
top right). This is really detailed and an incredible piece of work that
takes some getting into.
9.06
You can display the whole chart, a magnified portion, decay products
(see below), or half-lives, and save screens by pressing the * key on
the numeric keypad as before. The radioactive isotopes are displayed in
a flashing colour, which flashes a bit too quickly for my liking, but at
least itæs distinctive. Extra information on using the software is in
the Help file, and the tutorial covers different decay processes,
fission, fusion, basic particles and much more.
9.06
Summary
9.06
I could describe all the features in these programs, but I suspect Paul
wouldnæt let me have enough space to do them justice! Suffice it to say
that this isnæt ordinary software Ö it is outstanding in its scope,
detail and originality. If you, or any of the family, have any interest
in chemistry, or youære a teacher looking for software for school, you
should buy Elements straight away. I love playing with it, looking at
different relationships and seeing if I can account for them.
9.06
Nuclides is more specialised, and ideally suited to AáLevel or
University; but when you buy Elements, you might as well get Nuclides
for the extra cost and learn about radioactive isotopes in the process.
The value for money is incredible, and the level of detail breathtaking.
9.06
The only thing Iæve seen that comes anywhere near them is a US-produced
Windows program that does less for three times the price (and they canæt
spell Éaluminiumæ!). I described some of the features of these two
programs to a PC-owning friend, and he was extremely jealous.
9.06
The enthusiasm of the author is another plus point. Having started this
for his own benefit, it has now become a labour of love. New information
and features are continually being added, and upgrades will be available
in return for the original disc and ú2: Roger suggests every six months
for this, which seems a very good idea.
9.06
At these prices, everyone should send their cheques to: Atomic Software,
1 Fells Grove, Worsley, Manchester, M28 7JN straight away, and feel
proud that we have some chemistry software that can leave other
platforms standing!áuá
9.06
The Graphics Column
9.06
David Thornton
9.06
Exciting news for vector conversion
9.06
Whilst I was writing this column an alpha version ImageFS 2.05a arrived
on my desk for examination. The major new feature is that it can now
import its first vector file format Ö WMF or Windows Metafile. Meta
Convertor from Keysoft was also recently launched and this supports WMFs
too. (See Rob Ivesæ review on page 22.) The careware WMF->Draw is
available but I have found it to be too unreliable for my own use. (See
also Charlie Woodbridgeæs experiences with converting metafiles on page
21.)
9.06
When ImageFS is loaded, dropping a WMF file into Draw produces an exact
copy of the original file. The WMF I tried came from my MS Office
clipart directory. Unfortunately, the three WMF files that Iáexported
from CorelDraw 6 refused to load into ImageFS. I must stress that all
these problems will be fixed in the future and that 2.05a is only a
preliminary alpha version. To support the WMF format, the options window
has also been enhanced. From examining the options window, it is also
apparent that Alternative Design & Publishing (notice the slight name
change) intend to implement the following additional formats in the
future: JPEG, PNG, Photoshop, ICO, Degas, MTV and also the following
vector formats: CGM, Adobe Illustrator, CMX (Corel Presentation/Metafile
Exchange), WPG, DXF, OS/2 Metafile, HPGL and LotusPIC. CDR is a very
complex format and may not be implemented. PICT2 could also be enhanced
to support the vector variants and EPS might also be implemented.
9.06
Once full support for the vector formats is included, there will be no
need to use ArtWorks as an intermediate conversion utility. I have
always been a little apprehensive about buying ImageFS, even though it
is an excellent utility, because ChangeFSI already supports many of the
formats that ImageFS also supports. Once vector format support is
established, ImageFS will be a unique product that really is an
essential graphics tool. It will enable PC clipart CD-ROMs to be
accessed by RISC OS and the clipart to be loaded into any RISC OS
application that accepts drawfiles.
9.06
Composition
9.06
Clares launched version 1.02 of Composition (a.k.a. Compo) at Acorn
World. Malcolm Banthorpe is working on a review of this product so I
will only touch on some of the new features. I highly recommend that
existing users of Composition purchase the upgrade direct from Clares.
This includes support for Virtualise Ö the virtual memory system which
is available separately from Clares. If you have a limited supply of
DRAM (i.e. 8Mb or less), Virtualise is for you. Even users of 16Mb, or
possibly 24Mb, machines will benefit from Virtualise. Improved support
for ArtWorks files has also been implemented and Photoshop files are now
supported. There are also quite a few other improvements, but Iáwill
leave Malcolm Banthorpe to cover these.
9.06
I must admit that I am a fan of Composition. As I am not an artist, I
like the program because it allows me to pretend to be one! It is
particularly easy to drop in two JPEGæs, apply a low opacity value to
one to make it transparent and to then add a colour block to the canvas.
With a little fiddling and manoeuvring, the result can look quite
spectacular.
9.06
Compo could well be a big success because it is the only RISC OS bitmap
application capable of layering. I know that Photoshop 3, Photo-Paint
and various other bitmap editors are capable of layering, but these
programs are not the same thing as Composition.
9.06
Clares have also released version 1.02 of ProArt24. Like Composition,
ProArt24 now has a direct link with Virtualise and works very well with
it. Virtual memory is one of the more important features of a competent
graphics program. It is pleasing to see Clares respond to a demand and
produce a utility which not only works with their own software but also
with products from other developers.
9.06
DTP Software
9.06
Shortly after Impression Publisher 4.07 was released, CC announced
version 4.08. This version fixes bugs which only became apparent in
4.07. If you have experienced a problem and would like to upgrade,
contact CC and quote your serial number and Impression Publisher version
number for details.
9.06
Publisher Plus 5.07 is also available. Like Publisher 4.07/8, Plus now
uses dynamic areas available with RISC OS 3.5/6 and also links in with
CCæs new TurboDrivers (see below). Both versions of Impression are worth
upgrading to, especially for the automatic smart-quote feature which I
have found to be very useful.
9.06
I am sure that many of you have read the Acorn Shopper column in the
February Computer Shopper magazine. For those of you who havenæt, it was
almost entirely devoted to the subject of future RISC OS software
development and C++. Charles Moir, the managing director of CC, wasnæt
particularly sure whether his company would develop Impression or
ArtWorks any further. Mr Moir believes that the Acorn market is too
small to justify major development and that Acorn have fallen way behind
Microsoft and the Windows market. For all we know, Impression Publisher
4.08 could be the final version of Impression. Only time will tell and
it will be interesting to see how many people adopt other packages such
as Ovation Pro.
9.06
I am looking forward to seeing Ovation Pro when it finally ships. (I am
told by Beebug it is NOT likely to be out before this edition hits the
doormats. Ed.) I gather that it will have filters to allow sprite, TIFF,
GIF, PhotoCD, JPEG, Draw and ArtWorks files to be loaded, although some
may not appear until the second or third release. EPS may not be
supported until the second release either. (Publisher Plus is supposed
to support EPS, although I cannot get any of my EPS files to display
their TIFF previews. Can anyone help me, please?) Some sort of image
processing facility is planned but I am not sure how comprehensive this
will be. I hope to bring you more news at a later date.
9.06
TurboDrivers update
9.06
The latest version of the RISC OS 3 TurboDrivers is 4.04. This version
was also launched at Acorn World and incorporates JPEG support for RISC
OS 3.60 users, improved printing of colour photographs, better support
for HP printers and a hot link with Impression. The upgrade costs ú11.75
inclusive from CC and also includes a copy of SepEd2 (as with version
4.03) which enables you to create your own colour correction tables. It
works with Impression, ArtWorks or the TurboDrivers.
9.06
One of the new features of the latest versions of Publisher (4.07/8),
Publisher Plus (5.07) and the TurboDrivers (4.04) is a special colour
correction hot link. The hot link allows Publisher to use the colour
correction tables specified by the TurboDriver in place of its own which
are specified in the Publisher preferences. Let me explain.
9.06
Connected to my RiscPC, I have a Canon BJC-600 printer which I use to
print monochrome, colour (on plain paper) and colour (on coated paper).
I have installed three copies of the BJC-600 TurboDriver into !Printers
and have named them Mono, Plain and Coated. Each of the three drivers is
configured with a different colour correction table Ö Mono TurboDriver,
Canon BJC-600 plain and Canon BJC-600 coated. I have also configured my
copies of Publisher and Publisher Plus to use their internal PostScript
imagesetter (normal) colour correction tables for when I output work to
a PostScript file. When I wish to print from Publisher or Publisher
Plus, I load !Printers and choose the type of printout Iárequire by
selecting the relevant printer icon on the iconbar. Publisher and
Publisher Plus automatically detect this and select the colour table
specified by the TurboDriver, displaying its name in the print setup
window, instead of the one specified in their preferences.
9.06
Impression will use the selected TurboDriver colour table to perform all
colour correction, when printing, unless an Acorn driver is chosen
instead. If I were to select an Acorn printer driver, Impression would
automatically select its own internal colour table Ö in my case
PostScript imagesetter Ö and would use this for colour correction when
printing.
9.06
There is one exception to this rule and it relates to monochrome
printing. Publisher and Publisher Plus do not apply any colour
correction when the TurboDrivers are set to output in monochrome. If a
TurboDriver is configured to use the öMono TurboDriverò colour table and
this driver is selected, Publisher still states that it will use its own
internal colour tables when printing. According to a CC technician öyou
may potentially be mistaken about which table is being used [when
printing in monochrome] since when a monochrome printer driver is
selected, Impression will display its own selected colour table, but
wonæt actually use it.ò
9.06
If you decide to write to me, an S.A.E. or label would be appreciated,
if you would like a reply. You can write to me at: 1 Castle Court, Lower
Burraton, Saltash, Cornwall. PL12 4SE. u
9.06
Studio24Pro
9.06
Malcolm Banthorpe
9.06
A new version of Pineappleæs Studio24 painting and image processing
package Ö which is now called Studio24Pro Ö shows a considerable
enhancement of the original program. In fact, so much has changed that
it is effectively a new application and hence deserves the new name.
9.06
Several of the features which it now incorporates are, at the time of
writing, unique among programs on the Acorn platform and are likely to
be of considerable interest to serious graphics users. New purchasers
will (at the time of writing) receive both versions and, in line with
Pineappleæs upgrade policy, existing users will receive the new version
free of charge.
9.06
The review copy was supplied with a disc-based version of the handbook
in the form of a hypertext document produced using the application
ClearView from DEC_data. When the new handbook is complete, it will be
distributed to all registered users.
9.06
So whatæs new?
9.06
As Iæve already mentioned, thereæs a great deal thatæs new about
Studio24Pro, but Iæll start by describing a couple of features that, for
me, make it stand out from other painting packages currently available
to Acorn users.
9.06
Colour channels
9.06
One of the most important ways in which Studio24Pro differs from the
earlier Studio24 and from most other image manipulation applications is
the way in which the component colour channels of an image can be
handled independently. Images can be created as, or converted to, either
RGB, CMYK or indexed formats. Most RiscPC users will probably be
familiar with the former two, as both methods of defining a colour are
offered by Paintæs colour picker.
9.06
Briefly, RGB defines a colour in terms of its red, blue and green
components, whereas CMYK defines it in terms of cyan, magenta, yellow
and black Ö which also happen to be the pigments used by most colour
printers. An indexed image has a single channel of eight bits per pixel
and would most commonly be used for grey-scale images. RGB and CMYK each
use eight bits per pixel per channel. In other words, an RGB image,
without a mask, would have 24 bits per pixel and a CMYK image would have
32 bits per pixel. The images are handled internally at these colour
depths regardless of the screen mode being used.
9.06
On-screen dithering is used to good effect so that 32 thousand colour
screen modes are very usable. Even in 256 and 16 colour screen modes,
there is still a useful colour representation of the picture being
edited. When the image is in RGB format, any combinations of the three
channels Ö red, blue and green Ö can be selected independently for
viewing and editing. Similarly, any combination of the four channels of
a CMYK image can selected.
9.06
In addition to these basic colour channels, up to 16 alpha or mask
channels Ö each of eight bits per pixel Ö can be created. When a new
alpha channel has been created, the mask can be created simply by
copying an existing channel, or it could be derived from any two, using
a variety of combining operations such as add, subtract, multiply,
minimum, etc. Any of the alpha channels, as well as the basic colour
channels themselves, can then be selected for use as variable
transparency masks. In fact for any channel, whether colour or mask, its
possible to set whether it is writable or not, whether or not it is
visible, and whether or not it is to act as a mask.
9.06
When masks are made visible, the colour and opacity in which they will
appear can be selected to minimise ambiguity with the main image
content. An alternative way to create a mask on an alpha channel is to
first of all set it to be writable and visible, and the rest of the
image channels to be simply visible. The normal painting tool can then
be used to make the mask. Yet another way would be to use the magic wand
tool to pick out a range of values on a particular channel Ö this would
then determine how the mask was generated.
9.06
Texture generation
9.06
Another important innovation Ö also, as far as I can see, currently
unique on the Acorn platform Ö is the inclusion of a texture generator.
It is capable of generating an infinite number of textures using a
random mathematical mutation technique. It is quite common for graphics
applications to offer a number of pre-set textures which can affect the
way that Épaintæ or effects are applied.
9.06
This goes a step further by allowing the textures to be generated from
scratch using fractal techniques. Where pre-set textures are applied to
a large area, there is often a danger that a repetition in the pattern
will be visible, as the texture bitmaps supplied are generally quite
small. By generating the texture from scratch, any area can be covered
without this problem occurring.
9.06
Among the textures that it is possible to generate, some have a
naturalistic appearance such as clouds, wood, metallic effects, water
and marble, while many are purely abstract. A texture is defined by a
short text file, a large number of which are supplied with Studio24Pro.
These definitions occupy a few hundred bytes each at the most.
9.06
When the texture generator has been selected, the current texture is
shown in the centre of a group of twelve variations or Émutationsæ. A
new pre-defined texture can be displayed by dragging and dropping one of
the text definitions. Clicking on the selected texture will generate a
new set of mutations; clicking on one of the surrounding textures will
select it and also generate a further twelve mutations from it. The
colours mapped onto the selected texture can be chosen from a number of
pre-set colour maps. Whenever you generate a new set of textures, the
rate of mutation of both the colour map and the texture itself is
variable.
9.06
As the changes are random and therefore unpredictable, it may take
several attempts until you see something that you like. Therefore, if
you should generate a new texture that looks as if it might be useful in
the future, itæs a good idea to save its text definition file. The
general appearance of the current texture can be maintained in a new
variation by changing the random Éseedæ. It is also possible to change
the horizontal and vertical scaling of a texture.
9.06
When these two facilities alone are added to the comprehensive painting
and filtering options to be described below, the result is an extremely
versatile graphics package which is bound to give the publishers of
other graphics packages something to think about when designing their
next software releases.
9.06
Let me now take a more general look at the application.
9.06
Brushes
9.06
The most fundamental facility that any painting application needs is
some sort of brush. A glance at the toolbar shows there are, in fact,
four brush tools immediately apparent on the top row, each represented
by variations of an airbrush icon. Their functions are airbrush Ö for
actually applying Épaintæ to the canvas, undo brush, clone brush and
effects brush. If a graphics tablet is used in place of the mouse,
stylus pressure can, optionally, be set to control either opacity, width
or both.
9.06
Twenty different sizes of both hard-edged and soft-edged circular
brushes are available. Opacity and brush spacing are adjustable. The
spacing control sets the speed at which the paint spray follows the
brush movements. Low values of spacing cause the spray to follow smooth
curves but with the penalty of the paint lagging some distance behind
the brush. Both foreground and background colours can be set using RGB,
HSV, CMYK or indexed values.
9.06
There is also the usual option to pick up a colour from the existing
canvas. The foreground colour is applied if <select> is pressed and the
background colour is used when <adjust> is pressed. Painting with a
textured brush Ö in order to give the appearance of, say, chalk Ö is
easily achieved by generating a texture on an alpha channel and then
allowing it to influence the way the Épaintæ is applied. Straight line
painting is enabled by holding down <shift>.
9.06
The undo brush is fairly self-explanatory, but it is worth pointing out
that the opacity control still works; so, in effect, a partial undo is
possible.
9.06
The clone brush allows part of an image to be copied from one area of
the canvas to another. The pointer is simply placed over the area to be
copied, then <shift> is held down, the pointer moved to the area where
the copy is to be painted and <shift> released. Again, the opacity can
be varied.
9.06
The effects brush can be used to apply any of the effects and filters Ö
to be described later Ö as an alternative to applying them globally. For
instance, if you wanted to selectively defocus part of the picture, you
could set up some Gaussian blur and paint it on as required. Among the
large number of possibilities in this area would be to paint on extra
colour saturation or to selectively lighten or darken an area.
9.06
Next to the airbrush icons are two further brushes; the wash brush,
which is useful for smoothing out colour transitions and for creating
watercolour effects, and the smudge brush which is very effective in
emulating some of the effects that you might get using oil paints.
9.06
Draw functions
9.06
Drawfiles may be imported by dragging them onto the canvas or,
alternatively, created from scratch within Studio24Pro. Many of the
features of Draw are available within the application, such as straight
lines, curves, rectangles and ellipses. Scaling and rotation, as well as
the usual line and fill styles, are also available. The only notable
omission, where you might want to create the drawfile externally in Draw
itself, is the provision of a grouping function. It is, however,
possible to have multiple Draw objects on the screen and to select one
or more of them to be active.
9.06
Once Draw objects have been created or imported, they can be rendered in
a number of ways. The most obvious way is simply to render them using
the conventional Draw line and fill styles. It is also possible to
convert them to painted or smudged lines with a selected brush using the
Stroke option. Once again, the opacity of the rendered object is
selectable. All Draw objects remain movable, scaleable, rotatable and
editable until deleted and only become part of the main canvas if
actually selected and pasted in one of the ways just described.
9.06
Drawn shapes can also be used to define an area of the canvas for use in
cut-out and paste operations. Cut-out sections of an image may also be
dragged to a new canvas. Although, as mentioned earlier, there is no
grouping command as such, it is still possible to select more than one
object by using <adjust> and then all subsequent operations, such as
pasting, will be performed on all of the selected objects.
9.06
Filters and effects
9.06
The number of facilities offered under the heading of filters and
effects is considerable and so Iæll just mention a few that I have found
particularly useful. Iæve already mentioned Gaussian blur, and this is
very effective in applying a defocussing effect. As the radius (in
pixels) over which the blur is spread can be set, quite a high degree of
defocus is possible. Then thereæs motion blur, spin blur and zoom blur
which all work very well.
9.06
Many effects will need to be applied to only part of the image. This is
easily achieved, either by setting up an alpha channel as a mask, or by
applying the effect with a brush as mentioned above. Colour balance,
contrast and saturation adjustment is comprehensively covered, as are
emboss, pointillise, bas relief, sharpness enhancement and several
varieties of edge detection. If youære really keen, it is possible to
design your own custom filters using a 5╫5 convolution matrix.
9.06
Some of the effects can take a minute or so to apply to a large canvas
and, as there are usually several parameters to try out for each one, it
could take some time to achieve just the right effect. Fortunately, any
effect can be quickly tried out on just part of the image in a small
preview window.
9.06
One of the effects which I particularly liked is called lighting. It
seems to work by treating the intensity of the chosen channel(s) as if
it were depth information and then applying a light source. The amount
of diffuse and specular reflection, and the angle of the lighting, are
among the variable parameters. The results really have to be seen to be
appreciated and can work very effectively on text.
9.06
This reminds me to mention that text can be typed directly into
Studio24Pro and that it behaves in some ways similarly to drawfiles, in
that it remains scalable, rotatable and editable until actually pasted
onto the canvas.
9.06
Files can be loaded and saved in a wide variety of graphics formats,
including Clear, PBM, JPEG, TIFF and, of course, Acorn sprites. Photo CD
files are loadable and it is also possible to scan images directly into
a Studio24Pro window provided that you have the appropriate Twain driver
software.
9.06
Virtual memory is supported and so it is possible to handle images which
occupy more than the available RAM by making use of hard disc space.
When there are multiple images being worked on, then as much as possible
of the current image is kept in RAM to make access as fast as possible.
The extent to which virtual memory is used can be controlled in three
ways.
9.06
ÉMinimise Memoryæ will use the least possible RAM required by the
application. This has the advantage that it may free enough memory to
run other applications but may also slow things down by requiring more
hard disc access. ÉMaximise memoryæ will keep as much of the image(s) as
possible in RAM and is generally preferable, in order to reduce time
taken on hard disc accesses. Finally, a compromise setting is possible
by dragging the memory usage bar associated with Studio24Pro in the Task
Manager.
9.06
Conclusions
9.06
I was very impressed with Studio24Pro. It offers an enormous range of
facilities and is likely to keep even the most avid graphics enthusiasts
satisfied for a very long time. Nevertheless, I found that it remains
easy and intuitive to use.áuá
9.06
I find this review extremely exciting and encouraging. Can you imagine
all these facilities, which work comfortably on a RiscPC 700, being run
on a Strong RiscPC?! Whilst Intel are desperately trying to get their
Series 6 processors to run as fast as Pentiums, let alone faster, and
Apple are launching multi-thousand dollar four-processor PowerPCs which
need special software to be written, Acorn software houses will be able
(says he, hopefully!) to run existing software at four or more times the
current speed within six months or so! Ed.áuá
9.06
The RISC Disc 2 CD-ROM
9.06
Jochen Konietzko & Richard Rymarz
9.06
(This is a combination of the Éofficialæ review which Richard did and a
longer, unsolicited, review sent in by Jochen. I hope that what I have
produced here is the best bits of the two reviews! Ed.)
9.06
Well, what can a reviewer make of this? It is a CD¡ROM specifically
designed for RiscPC owners. Before offering a (to be fair, very
subjective) opinion on whether it is worth buying, an exploration of the
contents might persuade you it is just what you need.
9.06
Presentation
9.06
The disc loads as would be expected, with the program icon installing
itself on the iconbar and a beautifully designed cover page popping up.
The introductions are in English, Welsh and German, each eventually
finishing up at the main title page. Here, the contents are listed with
suitable icons alongside them. Click on the words or icons and the next
page is shown. Arrows take you back to the title page and pointing
fingers lead to pages within each section. All this is very easy and is
quickly mastered but if you are still struggling, a help page is
available.
9.06
Other offerings on the title page include a simple search facility which
requests the file path to find a piece of information Ö click on the
search result and you are taken to that information. Then there are the
credits, complete with digitised pictures of the producers, and an
opportunity to win a RiscPC by searching for hidden clues. However, be
warned that there are more than 7,000 files to peruse Ö but if you are
keen, you have until 31st October 1996 to enter.
9.06
Contents
9.06
ÉCommercialæ section
9.06
Offerings in this section come from 24 firms, and even Computer Concepts
have deigned to appear Ö they offer a demo of AudioWorks and a Magpie
presentation of the Eagle card. Others on the CD are ArmTech (a demo of
a program which shows drawfiles of the worldæs flags Ö I wonder why the
programmers thought those drawfiles had to be shown in mode 15), Aspex
(demos of Architech and Spex), B&H Startup from Germany (demo of a large
German language film database), CD_Circle (FLI files, demos of a
multimedia viewer, the CD_Circle program, DarkRoom2, a Microsoft Ö
pardon the expression Ö CD viewer), Circle Software (shareware Reverse
Polish Notation Calculator; time limit for use one month), Computer
Tutorial Services (demos of Provocator, Maths Explorer, Maths Odyssey),
Digital Psychosis (demo of Oddball), iSV (demos of TableCalc, XStitch
and various programs for displaying and manipulating fonts), MEU Cymru
(applications for the Welsh version of RISC OS), MEWSoft (demos of
MenuManager and DietManagerXtra), MyndGaemz (demo of Detritus), Oregan
Software (demo of Arcturus), PMS (demo of Philipæs Music Scribe),
Praktikum (demo of Praktikum Ö German and English language program for
processing mathematical series; Praktikum is the term used for the times
when science students do experiments themselves), Sherston (demos of
Plantwise, Crystal Rain Forest 2, Rosie & Jim), plus the following:
9.06
ÉPD/Sharewareæ section
9.06
Lots of stuff here which you may know from any one of the major PD
libraries.
9.06
The programming part is very extensive, containing everything from tools
for C and Fortran77 programmers to full implementations of Common Lisp,
GNU Smalltalk and Motorola Cross Assemblers.
9.06
ÉResourcesæ section
9.06
As far as sheer volume is concerned, this section has three major parts:
music, MPEG and Replay files each occupy well over 50Mb of disc space;
the nine different music file formats can be played with one of the 14
players in the PD section.
9.06
For me (Jochen) the highlight of this section is hidden amongst the GIF
files: a directory with 66 NASA pictures of Shoemaker Levyæs collision
with Jupiter, each with an accompanying text file roughly half a page
long.
9.06
The JPEG and drawfiles are placed inside copies of ImageBank, which, it
is claimed, will only run on RISC OS 3.1, but I could find no problem
under RISC OS 3.50D. The JPEG files are an undistinguished miscellany of
pictures. Only those who, for whatever reason, like to look at military
aircraft will be pleased with the 37 or so images.
9.06
ÉThe Clanæ section
9.06
This section contains lots of text files downloaded from the Internet
and from various Bulletin Boards (dated between January and October æ95,
with an in-depth look at SCSI 2 thrown in which was written in 1990), a
directory with Acornæs press releases between November æ94 and September
æ95, and a directory with twenty old (April æ94) files in Impression
format about the RiscPC. Not all of the texts in the FAQ part concern
computers; there is one about NASAæs space program, which contains a
hint for the competition (see ÉMiscellaneousæ).
9.06
ÉThe Webæ section
9.06
I found this one quite fascinating. It gives you a dry run of the WWW,
with a Évirtual webæ, filled with about 90Mb worth of files. You can use
either of the two Web Browsers supplied to access that mass of
information (mostly carrying an August or September dateline) to see for
yourself whether the Web is for you. There are nineteen Ésitesæ present
on this disc, such as Acorn, ANT Ltd, The ARM Club, ARMLinux, etc.
9.06
Miscellaneous
9.06
The CD contains a competition, with a RiscPC as the prize! Starting from
a file called Clue1, you have to find aá number of other clues, hidden
in a variety of ways. The first to phone in with the solution (before
31.10.1996) wins the RiscPC.
9.06
There seems to be a bug in Uniquewayæs front end concerning screen modes
with rectangular pixels. On my machine, the ÉCommercialæ and ÉClanæ
windows appear distorted (see top right), but in square pixel modes,
everything works just fine.
9.06
Other problems: A double click on the Install directory provokes an
Abort on Data Transfer error. On my machine, acknowledging the error
opens the directory, and everything seems to work, until I try to load
the next Impression file and then Publisher 4.05 crashes quite
spectacularly (with a sequence of no less than nine different error
boxes). On at least one other machine, RISCáOS crashes immediately.
9.06
Richardæs conclusion
9.06
This CD-ROM costs ú25 through Archive and provides some commercial
demos, art, music and animations, useful (and not so useful) cheap
programs, a limited virtual WWW and some Clan interest items. I enjoyed
skipping through the lists of items, particularly the PD programs, but
my interest soon waned. Others may gain much more than I did, but I
really must ask the question: Why bother? If Acorn were to produce this
CD-ROM as promotional material, then I might see some real value.
However, as it stands I am uncertain whether general compilations of
this type have real lasting worth.
9.06
Jochenæs conclusion
9.06
The part that makes this disc really different from the rest is the
Virtual Web. Anyone who, after all the media hype, is debating whether
to invest in Internet access, should take a good look at this disc. The
rest Ö well, there should be something for everyone, but is it enough to
justify the price of ú25 through Archive? For me, it definitely was. áuá
9.06
C++ Column
9.06
Tony Houghton
9.06
One of the newer features of C++ is an effective solution to the age-old
problem of error handling. Itáprovides a mechanism called exceptions to
allow program flow to be diverted to error handlers when something goes
awry. Unfortunately, at the time of writing, the only RISC OS C++
compiler to support exceptions is Easy C++, which I do not have, so
Iácannot test any examples. However, the subject is quite easy to
understand, and is clearly explained by the documentation I have. If I
show you what youære missing, you might feel like me and want to make a
lot of noise to Acorn about it!
9.06
The traditional way of dealing with errors, such as lack of memory, in
large applications which cannot afford to quit abruptly, is to skip the
rest of the current function or loop and return:
9.06
int f()
9.06
{something 9.06
  if (error)
9.06
  {report error here
9.06
    return 0;
9.06
  }
9.06
  // Carry on as normal
9.06
  return (useful value);
9.06
}
9.06
A drawback of this is that f() probably has to indicate to its caller
that an error has occurred, and the caller in turn may have to indicate
to its caller, and so on. Also, the example shows using a return value
of zero to indicate an error. This is usually fine for pointers, but
zero may be a normal value for a function returning an integer. Also, it
tells the caller nothing about why f() failed.
9.06
The technique can be expanded so that all functions that may return an
error condition have a return type that can indicate an error, such as
_kernel_oserror *. The usual return value could be changed to a pointer
argument:
9.06
_kernel_oserror *f(int *result)
9.06
{{ Style öUnknown1ò Off}  // Do something
9.06
  if (error)
9.06
  {report error here
9.06
    return error;
9.06
  }
9.06
  // Carry on as normal
9.06
  result = useful value;
9.06
  return 0;
9.06
}
9.06
This is inefficient in that it adds an extra, mostly redundant, return
value or argument to the function call process. Swapping the error and
result pointers would not significantly improve this.
9.06
In fact, the whole technique suffers from the overhead of every function
in a chain having to explicitly check for errors.
9.06
Exceptions
9.06
The alternative offered by exceptions can best be shown by an example:
9.06
class Array {ints 9.06
  int size;
9.06
  int *array;
9.06
public:
9.06
  // ...
9.06
  class Range ;
9.06
  int &operator[](int subscript)
9.06
  {>= size)
9.06
      throw Range();
9.06
    return array[subscript];
9.06
  }
9.06
  // ...
9.06
};
9.06
The member class, Range, is used only to distinguish exceptions
associated with Arrays; classes need not contain any members.
9.06
The keyword throw is followed by an expression. In this case, Range()
constructs an object of type Array::Range. When an exception is thrown,
the rest of the function is abandoned and program flow is resumed at the
innermost handler for a matching type provided by the chain of callers.
This process is called stack unwinding, effectively automating the
process described in the previous section. Any automatic (local)
variables created by functions in the call chain are properly destructed
and deallocated to avoid memory being lost (ömemory leaksò).
9.06
To handle (catch) an exception, a function must enclose the block that
calls functions which might throw them in a try block followed by one or
more catch blocks (handlers):
9.06
void negate(Array &a)
9.06
{i=0 ; i<100; ++i)
9.06
    a[i] = -a[i];
9.06
  cout << öArray negated\nò;
9.06
}
9.06
void f(Array &a)
9.06
{{ negate(a);
9.06
  }
9.06
  catch (Array::Range)
9.06
  {Array subscript  9.06
            öout of range\nò;
9.06
  }
9.06
  // Subsequent code
9.06
}
9.06
negate() is bugged in that it assumes all Arrays have 100 members. If it
tries to process one with less, Array::operator[] will throw a Range
exception, skipping the rest of the operatoræs code. From here the
computer Élooks atæ the part of negate() that called the operator; as it
is not a try block, negate() is also terminated early, skipping the cout
statement, but the variable i is deallocated. negate()æs caller is a try
block, so the following handlers are examined in order. In this case,
there is only one, so the code within it is executed because its type
matches that of the thrown object. The öSubsequent codeò is executed if
an exception is caught or if there is no exception, but not if there was
an exception that was not caught before it.
9.06
Using a caught value
9.06
The bit in brackets following keyword catch is a little like a function
argument. As well as acting as a tag for matching the type, a variable
can be put here to be used within the handler. For example, we may want
to indicate the value of the subscript that caused an exception:
9.06
class Array {class Range {bad_sub ;
9.06
    Range(int s) : bad_sub(s)
9.06
  };
9.06
  // ...
9.06
};
9.06
We would then have to change the throw expression to:
9.06
      throw Range(subscript);
9.06
and the handler could become:
9.06
  catch (Array::Range r)
9.06
  {Array subscript  9.06
         << r << ö out of range\nò;
9.06
  }
9.06
Catching derived classes
9.06
Errors can usually be categorised; exceptions allow categorisation to be
modelled as base and derived classes. For example, suppose Range was
just one of a group of errors that could be thrown by an operation on an
Array:
9.06
class Array {class Error {void print_reason()
9.06
    {Array error\n ;
9.06
  };
9.06
  class Range : public Error {bad_sub ;
9.06
  public:
9.06
    Range(int s) : bad_sub(s) ;
9.06
    void print_reason()
9.06
    {Array subscript  <<
9.06
        bad_sub << ö out of range\nò;
9.06
  };
9.06
  class MisMatch : public Error {stuff to Range
9.06
  };
9.06
  // ...
9.06
};
9.06
Calling the base class Error might seem foolishly vague, but out of the
scope of Array it has to be qualified with Array:: anyway. A MisMatch
might be thrown by attempting to add the members of two arrays of
different sizes.
9.06
Then we might write:
9.06
void subtract(Array &a, Array &b)
9.06
{{ negate(b);
9.06
    add(a, b);
9.06
      // Assuming we have defined
9.06
      // void add(Array &, Array &);
9.06
  }
9.06
  catch (Array::Error &e)
9.06
  {e.print_reason() ;
9.06
  }
9.06
  // Subsequent code
9.06
}
9.06
Note the use of virtual functions to allow a specific message to be
printed without the handler knowing which of the Array::Error classes it
has caught.
9.06
To be able to do this, you must catch a reference to the exception, not
simply the exception. The latter would just cause the sub-class (e.g.
the base Error part) of a derived class (e.g. Range) to be copied to a
new base object without the information specific to the derived class.
9.06
Multiple inheritance is also often useful for exception types.
9.06
Multiple handlers
9.06
Only being able to handle one type of exception, or those derived from
it, would be a little restrictive, so you can have a chain of handlers:
9.06
{{ // ...
9.06
  }
9.06
  catch (type1)
9.06
  {... }
9.06
  catch (type2)
9.06
  {... }
9.06
  // ...
9.06
  catch (...)
9.06
  {... }
9.06
}
9.06
The final catch statement with an ellipsis (...) is not my abbreviation.
This stands for catch any type.
9.06
The syntax is reminiscent of a switch...case statement, but the
differences are:
9.06
Each handler has its own scope.
9.06
When program flow reaches the end of a handler, none of the others are
executed (whereas in a case statement youæd have to add break).
9.06
The catch-all handler, catch (...) is analogous to switch...caseæs
default.
9.06
Handlers must be in a sensible order to avoid writing ones which can
never get executed. This means that handlers for derived classes must go
before their derived classes, and a (...) handler must be the last one
for any try block.
9.06
Rethrowing an exception
9.06
A throw statement with no operand rethrows the last exception:
9.06
  throw;  // Rethrow last exception
9.06
A good use for this would be a situation like:
9.06
void g()
9.06
{up something special
9.06
  try
9.06
  {... }
9.06
  catch (...)
9.06
  {up the special something
9.06
    throw;
9.06
      // Let caller deal with
9.06
      // the exception
9.06
  }
9.06
  // Clear up the special something
9.06
}
9.06
void f()
9.06
{{ g();
9.06
  }
9.06
  // Many useful handlers
9.06
}
9.06
throw on its own can only be called from a handler or from a function
that is directly or indirectly called by a handler. Otherwise
terminate() is called (see below).
9.06
One thing to remember is that the whole exception (i.e. all of a derived
class) is rethrown even if only a base class was caught.
9.06
Uncaught exceptions
9.06
If an exception is not caught, the terminate() function is called. By
default terminate() (defined void terminate(void);) calls abort() which
abruptly terminates the program.
9.06
As with operator new, it is possible to replace terminate. The following
is provided:
9.06
typedef void (*PFV)();
9.06
PFV set_terminate(PFV);
9.06
The return value is the previously registered handler. Unfortunately, I
cannot tell you in which header the above is defined because Acorn C++
does not provide it.
9.06
By the time terminate() is called, all automatic variables should have
been destructed, but you may have some global objects which need to be
destructed. Therefore, a practical strategy might be:
9.06
// Putting it all in a class keeps
9.06
// things tidy
9.06
class MyTerminate {old_terminate ;
9.06
  static void my_terminate();
9.06
  MyTerminate()
9.06
  {old_terminate =
9.06
        set_terminate(my_terminate);
9.06
  }
9.06
} my_terminate;
9.06
PFV MyTerminate::old_terminate = 0;
9.06
void MyTerminate::my_terminate()
9.06
{set_terminate(old_terminate) ;
9.06
  exit(0);
9.06
}
9.06
The reason my_terminate() restores the original function is that,
otherwise, if a destructor called by exit() caused terminate() to be
called again, there might be an infinite loop.
9.06
Resource acquisition is initialisation
9.06
Exceptions have led to a programming style known as Éresource
acquisition is initialisationæ. Whenever a function or block acquires a
resource at its beginning, such as claiming some memory or opening a
file, and it is released at its end, care should be taken that an
exception will also cause the resource to be released. One way would be
to wrap the resource acquisition and release in the constructor and
destructor of an automatic variable, but to avoid introducing many
trivial classes, it can be preferable to write something like:
9.06
void f()
9.06
{= new char[256];
9.06
  try {workspace 9.06
  }
9.06
  catch (...)
9.06
  {workspace ;
9.06
    throw;
9.06
  }
9.06
  delete[] workspace;
9.06
}
9.06
Exceptions and constructors
9.06
Exceptions make it much easier to handle errors from constructors.
Constructors do not have a return value, so without them, a programmer
has to resort to providing error flags; the stream libraries do this.
9.06
The interaction between constructors and exceptions is potentially
fragile, but it has been carefully designed so that a little care and
application of the Éresource acquisition is initialisationæ technique
leads to reliable operation. Remember (issues 8.12 and 9.1), a
constructor does the following before executing the code provided as a
function:
9.06
Constructs base classes.
9.06
Initialises special members.
9.06
As we have seen, this process can either be automatic, controlled by the
programmer or a mixture.
9.06
As far as the exception mechanism is concerned, an object or sub-object
is not considered initialised until its constructor has completely
executed.
9.06
If an exception occurs during a constructor, all sub-objects and members
that have been constructed are destructed in reverse order. The
destructor corresponding to the constructor in which the exception
occurred, is not called; therefore constructors should be written with
Éresource acquisition is initialisationæ in mind.
9.06
If a destructor that is executed during stack unwinding caused by an
exception, throws an exception, terminate() is called. There is no
provision for nesting of exceptions in this way. Try to avoid throwing
exceptions from destructors, although it is not always practical to keep
track of every function that a destructor calls.
9.06
One form of nested exception that is allowed is for a handler to throw
another exception, or for exceptions to be nested by having a
try...catch block in a handler. The latter should be avoided if
possible.
9.06
New handlers
9.06
Providing a new handler by passing a function address to
set_new_handler() is an extremely limited solution without exceptions.
All it can do is try to create some space for new to try again and
return, at which point new is called again, or not return. If it cannot
make any memory available, all it can do without exceptions is terminate
the program, probably by calling exit(). With exceptions, the program
can be allowed its Ésecond chanceæ at claiming memory and still be able
to continue in some way (essential for an application) if this fails, by
throwing an exception from the new handler.
9.06
Interface specifications
9.06
A function may specify, in its declaration, what types of exception it
can throw. The syntax is:
9.06
void f(int a) throw (T1, T2, T3);
9.06
This means that the only types that f() can throw are T1, T2, T3, or
classes derived from them. Without any specification (conventional
declaration), a function is allowed to throw any type, and with an empty
specification (throw()), it cannot throw any exceptions at all.
9.06
If a function throws an exception that is not specified, unexpected() is
called. Its default action is to call terminate(), but it can be
replaced with set_unexpected() in the same way as terminate.
9.06
If you provide the above specification, it is equivalent to defining f()
as:
9.06
void f(int a)
9.06
{{ // f()És code
9.06
  }
9.06
  catch (T1) {throw ;
9.06
  }
9.06
  catch (T2) {throw ;
9.06
  }
9.06
  catch (T3) {throw ;
9.06
  }
9.06
  catch (...) {unexpected() ;
9.06
  }
9.06
}
9.06
This means that unexpected() is conceptually called from a handler, so
it may rethrow the exception. A typical way of exploiting this would be
to give some error message to indicate that an unexpected exception has
been thrown, before letting it be handled as normal.
9.06
Exceptions that are not errors
9.06
I will not go into details here, but consider a loop that calls a
function and completes the loop when the function returns a value to say
it has finished (e.g. reading a file). If the function is checking for
this condition, it is really a waste of time for the loop to have to
check it as well. If the loop is likely to have many iterations and is
time-critical, it may be more efficient to have the function throw an
exception when it reaches its terminal condition, even if this is not an
error.
9.06
Thatæs all folks
9.06
I have now covered virtually all of C++. There are a few other concepts,
but these are either minor or very new and not standardised; they are
not supported by any of the compilers so far available for RISC OS, to
my knowledge. Next month, I hope to start a basic guide to programming
with the Toolbox. You will really need the monthly disc to follow this,
but if you are a PD or shareware programmer, I think you will find the
application that weæll build to be genuinely useful. I have already
completed it and used it for a real job, and it seems to work!
9.06
If you want to contact me electronically, I am: Tony Houghton,
<[e-mail]>, and my URL is: http://www.tcp.co.uk/~tonyh/ u
9.06
Geraldæs Column
9.06
Gerald Fitton
9.06
First a couple of general comments, and then I shall report on the
correspondence Iæve received about the obsolescence of the electronic
calculator.
9.06
Fireworkz
9.06
I have just received a copy of Version 1.24 with issue date 17áJaná1996.
I shall report on it next month.
9.06
Z88 Spellmaster
9.06
My public thanks to Chris Walker who has sent me this Computer Concepts
package via the Archive office. It works very well Ö I will return it as
soon as Iæve put it through its paces.
9.06
Impression
9.06
Also, I have received a book for review called öImpressionò by Dr
Anthony Ward from Paragon Publishing Ö æphone 01604-832149. It costs
ú9.95 and has a lot of good stuff in it. For now, let me say that it is
full of exercises for you to work through. Iællálet you know more about
it next month.
9.06
The bi-directional parallel port
9.06
Earlier Archimedes computers, like the very early PCs, have a uni-
directional printer port. Many years ago (I think it was about the time
that the 80286 came out), PCs changed; the parallel port became bi-
directional. The A5000, along with the A4, were the first Archimedes to
have bi-directional printer ports. We all know that Archimedes computers
last much longer than PCs Ö many Archive readers will still have a
machine built six or seven years ago Ö whereas most PC users will have
consigned their 80286 machines and even 80386 machines to the scrap
heap!
9.06
One consequence of this obsolescence in the PC world is that it is
unlikely that any PC user will still have a uni-directional parallel
port whereas, as a consequence of the longevity of the Archimedes, many
users will still have a uni-directional parallel port in their machine.
9.06
Some short while ago, I reported that a few printers wouldnæt work with
the earlier Archimedes machines because those printers require a fully
operational parallel port. I have further news Ö my source is a printer
supplier who deals with both Archimedes and PC users but who wishes to
remain anonymous (Iæm not sure why but I must respect the confidence he
has requested). In the following, the words in brackets have been added
by me in order to clarify the meaning of his comments. I do not take
responsibility for the accuracy of what is said but I believe it to be
true. I say this in the hope that, if the information is incorrect, HP
wonæt sue me but will pass on to me the correct information.
9.06
The printers in question are the HPáDeskJet 660/850C about which my
source says:
9.06
öHP have adopted the use of a high speed bi¡directional interface on
most of their later printers because this is necessary for the
sophisticated Windows drivers. It is through the bi-directional
interface that the ink cartridges are aligned. Even with the (bi-
directional) A5000, there are inconsistencies with Acornæs latest
drivers which result in reduced print quality and unacceptably slow
operation. Hewlett Packard have not released the control codes which can
be used to align the print head, so it is not possible for Acorn (or
Computer Concepts or any other writer of printer driver software) to
write drivers which overcome this problem. Price pressure on the market
for printers makes it increasingly likely that they will make use of the
intelligent (bi¡directional) Windows interface and that, as a
consequence, this problem will become worse.ò
9.06
My comment is that it is becoming increasingly important that, when you
buy a new printer, you do so from an Archimedes supplier who knows and
understands the nature of this Ébi-directionalæ problem. Donæt buy a
printer from your local high street PC vendor Ö it may not work!
9.06
(A bit of an overlap with Dave Floydæs Printing Column, here. You donæt
mind, do you, Dave! Ed.)
9.06
The Heinz Beans can
9.06
In a letter I received from Colin Singleton, he expresses the wish that
he had included this as one of his now famous puzzles. As a consequence,
I have decided not to give you the solution at this point but to leave
you to discuss it with Colin for possible inclusion in his Puzzle
Corner.
9.06
If you missed the problem, it is this. Consider a circular based
cylindrical can (similar to a can of Heinz Beans). For a fixed volume,
you can have a can with a large diameter base but a small height (like a
cake tin or the traditional salmon tin) or you can have a small diameter
base but a large height (like a tube or extended telescope); or you can
have something in between! As you vary the base diameter from large to
small the amount of material used for the ends of the can gradually
reduces but the material used for the curved portion gradually
increases. There is some shape which minimises the surface area of the
can. When you find that shape, what is the ratio of the diameter to the
height? And can you prove it?
9.06
An extension of the problem is this: What shape gives the minimum
surface area for the given volume? Is it better to have a rectangular
base, a square base or a circular (or even elliptical) base for the
cylinder? Indeed, what shape (for example, a tetrahedron or even a
dodecahedron, i.e.ánot necessarily a cylinder) gives the minimum surface
area and what is the ratio of the areas for the optimum square base,
circular base and ultimate shape?
9.06
If you decide to use a numerical method for determining the optimum, and
want to fully automate the process, hereæs a hint. Choose three points
which bracket the minimum. Evaluate the function at all three points and
then evaluate the function at two more points, one half way between the
first pair taken from the three, and the other half way between the
second pair. From the ₧ve points choose the three which give the
smallest values for the function. Having done that, repeat with the
three new points. Continue until the method converges. If you create a
spreadsheet for doing this, please let me have a copy Ö my students and
I will be most interested. By the way, using the Archimedes in double
precision mode (15 significant figures) you should be able to get the
Écorrectæ answer (a linear dimension) to about 7 significant figures Ö
after which any accuracy you think youæve got will be illusory!
9.06
The professor
9.06
Now to my main theme for this month, the obsolescent calculator.
9.06
I have received so many interesting letters about the demise of the
calculator and its replacement by the spreadsheet, that I am unsure
where to begin, but Iællástart with a reminiscence from Professor John
Greening! John says that, once upon a time, he worked at the National
Physical Laboratory designing aeroplane wing sections. Spreadsheets, the
paper ones, were used to do the sums. He used, as we did at Vickers, the
Brunsviga and Marchant mechanical calculators as calculating aids. He
says that, in those days, Écomputersæ were people who did such sums and
that is how he met the lady who is his wife. Johnæs experience mirrors
my own in that Jill, my wife, was one of many computors (I thought they
were spelt with an o and not an e) who did sums for me. AtáVickers,
computors were invariably girls because they were cheaper to employ! In
his letter, John says that it was his wife who taught him how to extract
square roots on a mechanical calculator. I remember well the day I
decided to teach Jill the same operation. It was one of those ÉRed
Letter Daysæ that I shall never forget!
9.06
Whilst this reminiscence gives me much personal pleasure, you may wonder
where Iæm leading with these stories of courting over the extraction of
square roots. Bear with me; I am, in my usual digressive way,
introducing a subject which Iæm sure youæll find interesting.
9.06
The PhD
9.06
The next point in this series of digressions is best illustrated by
another letter I got from a PhD (who wishes to remain anonymous Ö I
think heæs still with the company referred to in his letter even though
it happened a long time ago). Whilst doing his PhD, he had developed
extraordinarily clever techniques for solving particular types of super-
hard partial differential equation. During an early part of his long
employment with the (unnamed) company, he had been asked to find a
solution to a similar but different set of partial differential
equations! He spent many weeks trying to find an analytical solution
(i.e. by using formula and symbols) without success. Then he went to his
immediate superior who, in a few short lines of Éheavyæ maths,
demonstrated that an analytical solution to the problem could never be
found. My PhD correspondent was dumbfounded. He has sent me the proof of
the non-existence of an analytical solution; it is valid and quite
clever. His reaction (he says) was to be asked to be put onto another
problem Éworthy of his talentsæ. He says that he was told to solve the
problem using a numerical method or find another job! He had little
experience of numerical methods but found a computor (amongst those
allocated to him) who was kind, taught him much about numerical methods,
saved his job for him (so he says) and who, after showing him how to
extract square roots, became his wife!
9.06
The point I wish to make here is that, even in those days of long ago
when computers were computors (and PhDs were pleased that they were!),
analytical methods, so beloved by Professors, PhDs, A level teachers and
even myself (yes! Iæve been there too), have their serious limitations!
Sometimes, indeed all to often, numerical methods are the only way.
9.06
The teacher
9.06
Where now in my digressions and correspondence shall we go? I have
received many letters (as I knew Iáwould) challenging my comment that
the electronic calculator was on the way out. All these letters have a
particularly interesting feature in common (which weæll come to in a
moment). Those who support the calculator, point to all the new and
advanced features of the Émodernæ version of this device. They will plot
graphs, find turning points (maxima, minima and even points of
inflexion), solve quadratics, and differentiate analytical functions.
Indeed, their only drawback is that they all have a square root key,
thus preventing the teaching of square root extraction, a proven method
of encouraging matrimony between mathematicians and computors.
9.06
I have no doubt that my correspondents are right when they say that the
Émodernæ calculator is more of a microcomputer than a plain old-
fashioned calculator. Indeed, the best of them include a Élexical
analyseræ. In case you donæt know what Iæm talking about, a lexical
analyser is a package which will disassemble text, allow the
disassembled text to be processed and then put it all back together
again. An example of text which might be processed by a lexical analyser
is the function yá=áx*sin(x). Suppose we want the formula which is the
first derivative of this function (i.e. a formula for the slope of the
original curve) then we can use the lexical analyser to split the
function into its parts, use a process known as Édifferentiating a
product of two functionsæ and finish up with the solution
yÉ=áx*cos(x)á+ásin(x). I remember that there was a package available for
the old BBC computer around 1983 which would find the derivative of a
product of two (or more) functions Ö it had a built in lexical analyser.
I feel sure that something similar must exist for the Archimedes,
although I donæt know of one and, if it doesnæt exist, then this is
indicative of something relevant to my story (so please let me know if
youæve seen a Édifferentiateæ package).
9.06
The correspondents who support these Émodernæ calculators have one thing
in common. They all teach mathematics, they teach solving equations,
they teach differential (and integral) calculus, they teach graph
plotting. Maybe some of them teach numerical methods of solving
problems, but none have said so. One thing for sure, they wonæt teach
potential computors what is, apparently, a certain method of improving
their prospects of a good marriage, namely knowing how to extract square
roots!
9.06
I have no wish to upset teachers of mathematics but Iámust make my
point. The Émodernæ features of these calculators will be of more use to
A Level students of Pure Maths than they will be to those who need to do
lots of sums.
9.06
The computor
9.06
Where now on the trail of the square root of two? Iáhave had many
letters from scientists and engineers and a few from people in business.
Apart from universally complaining about the inability of many school
leavers to perform simple arithmetic without a calculator (e.g. öThey
canæt answer the question ÉHow many pennies are there in ú2.35?æ without
a calculatorò) there is general agreement that being able to solve
analytical equations, find the turning points of continuous functions,
etc, has limited application. Some suggest that A Level Maths is useful
only for those going to university! What they want are Écomputorsæ Ö
people who can carry out computations accurately with modern tools. By
Émodernæ they definitely do not mean calculators with what I have called
Émodernæ, features Ö they mean electronic spreadsheets.
9.06
In business, in science and in engineering, the mathematical functions
involved are generally not analytical and they are often discontinuous.
There is no way in which the techniques of the Émodernæ calculator can
be used with these functions. For centuries, the tool of preference for
doing sums, particularly on Éfunnyæ functions has been the paper-based
spreadsheet (with a formula at the head of each of the columns). I
believe that the spreadsheet, brought up-to-date by using an electronic
computer, will be the tool of preference for large scale number
crunching into the foreseeable future. Many in business, science and
engineering agree with me.
9.06
Finally, of the many letters Iæve had from practising Écomputorsæ, I
must select one. A lady called Susan Jones has sent me a disc file in
PipeDream format which gives a practical algorithm based on the
(xá+áy)^2á=áx^2á+á2*x*yá+áy^2 formula I quoted for extracting square
roots using an electronic spreadsheet. She says that it was taught to
her by her grandmother (a former Royal Aeronautical Establishment
computor from Farnborough) at the tender age of eight. I must
congratulate the grandmother; it seems obvious to me that, of the many
facts of life, she was acutely aware of the one which would make her
young granddaughter eligible and at the same time enable her to indicate
that she had selected her lifetime partner. I must add that Susan Jones
signs herself as a Miss so, to quote her, she öhas not yet come across
the Mr who is worthy to receive this secret aphrodisiac algorithm
inherited from my grandmotherò. I had considered putting Susanæs
grandmotheræs algorithm on the Archive monthly disc but, after careful
consideration, Iádecided that it would be a breach of confidence!
9.06
In conclusion
9.06
A heartfelt öThank You!ò to all of you who have written to me and shared
your reminiscences with me. Many of your letters included stories which
I found nostalgic, amusing and interesting. Please write to me at the
Abacus Training address on the back cover rather than via the Archive
office. Itæs much faster.áuá
9.06
The Oxford Infant Talking Atlas
9.06
Joe Gallagher
9.06
The Oxford Infant Talking Atlas from Sherston Software is the latest
fruit of the collaboration between the two companies which began with
the Oxford Reading Tree series of talking books several years ago.
Sherston had been involved with talking books, prior to this, in the
form of its own Naughty Stories series and had already begun to explore
using sound for information books in its Look Hear topic books. If you
are familiar with these, the format of the latest offering will come as
no surprise.
9.06
As well as the discs, the program is supplied with a paperback version
of the atlas. The single user version employs Sherstonæs familiar key
disc approach and although there has been much debate about it in the
pages of this magazine, I must add my two penniesæ worth. Obviously,
software producers want to prevent unauthorised copying of programs but
I feel that, in this day and age when hard disc systems are becoming the
norm, having to use a floppy disc to start up a program is a bit
primitive. Somehow, I donæt think that programs such as this will be
pirated to the same extent as happens with games software. Sherston has
started to appreciate this with its reduced and very reasonable site
licence prices. If you have more than one computer, it is definitely
worth buying the site version for a tenner more.
9.06
As with all Sherstonæs products, navigating through the program is
simplicity itself and it certainly does seem to achieve coverage of the
Key Stage 1 requirements for map reading under the National Curriculum.
Unfortunately, thatæs about it really, as the program doesnæt actually
do much else. To be fair, this isnæt so much the fault of Sherston, as
the material they were working with (the National Curriculum) and the
limitations imposed by the floppy disc medium. I think, however, that
slightly more use could have been made of hyper-links for exploring some
features of the countries. As it is, it comes across as a fairly run-of-
the-mill presentation which could have been knocked up in a few hours
with the likes of Genesis. This is potentially such an exciting topic,
that it deserves more attention than merely reading out the names of
towns, maps and rivers. To conclude, I can do no better than quote the
two six year olds who looked at the program for me. öIs that all it
does?ò
9.06
The Oxford Talking Atlas is available from Sherston software and costs
ú20 +VAT for a single user licence (ú22 through Archive) and ú30 for a
site licence.áuá
9.06
Printers and Printing
9.06
Dave Floyd
9.06
I must start off by apologising for the lack of a printer column in the
last couple of issues. Time has been a rather precious commodity at this
end over the past few months and, unfortunately, something had to give.
I have tried to answer as many letters as possible, but if you are one
of those I never had the chance to get around to, then sorry.
9.06
Psychic printers now available?
9.06
Danny Fagandiniæs Laser Direct recently suffered a terminal failure and
he replaced it with a Brother HL660. He reports that it takes a while
between releasing the computer and printing the first page, but he is
happy with the Brother on all other counts and states that it performs
admirably.
9.06
One evening, however, he scanned in a sheet with his Scanlight
Professional, placed the scan onto an Impression page and tapped Print.
To his surprise, the Brother immediately sprang into action and produced
a perfect copy of the page while ÉPrinting page 1æ was still on screen.
In due course, the computer was released, the printer digested the data
and produced a second copy! Neither the computer nor the printer had
seen the original before so how did this happen? I throw it out to
Archive readers to suggest a reason as I am rather lost for ideas.
Remember, the truth is out there.
9.06
CC software and the PC card
9.06
Since obtaining a 486 card for my RiscPC, I have noticed a problem with
CCæs dongle, or Impression Publisher itself, and the PC software or
card. Essentially, if I have used Impression and then load the PC
software, I cannot get out again without inviting strange errors, unless
I completely reset the computer. Sometimes, the PC card hangs on loading
too. The problem does not arise if I have either not used Impression
during that session or reset before going into PC mode. I had not really
thought about it as it does not impose on me too much, although it is a
bit annoying if I forget. P Williams from Northallerton has a more
knotty problem, which was what brought it to mind.
9.06
His system comprises a RiscPC 600 with an HP 500C inkjet, Turbo Driver
and Impression Publisher. In normal Acorn mode, he suffers no problems.
Printing from IBM mode, however, is a different matter, resulting in
either no output at all or complete gobbledegook emerging from the
printer. The only way Mr Williams has managed to get around this problem
has been to remove the dongle and the Turbo Driver lead, and print from
PC mode using a standard printer cable. This is obviously not an ideal
solution.
9.06
As a dedicated Acorn user, he does not want to lose the added speed of
Turbo Driver, but his wife wishes to continue to use the IBM software at
home which she uses at University. To try to find a more convenient
solution, Mr Williams configured the IBM side to print out via the
serial port and connected a suitable cable. Unfortunately, nothing
happened. Assuming the PC card and PC software was set up correctly, I
can only suggest checking whether the printer was configured to accept
input from the serial port, normally achieved through the menu or by a
dip switch in the printer itself.
9.06
Mr Williams has not given up, however, and has applied some admirable
lateral thinking to the problem. He asks whether a set up as shown in
the diagram overleaf would work.
9.06
My initial thought is that the dongle may be too far from the parallel
port to operate without Impression hanging up, but that the problem
probably lies with the Turbo Driver cable rather than the dongle itself.
Iácertainly suffered no problems printing from the PCácard with a dongle
in place (aside from that related above) when I owned an HP compatible.
If the dongle were placed in the computeræs parallel port instead of in
the sharer box, I can see no reason why this should not work in theory.
Perhaps a reader has access to the necessary bits and pieces to confirm
this.
9.06
In the meantime, I would suggest that Mr Williams contacts his local
Acorn dealer who may stock the necessary sharer boxes and would probably
be agreeable to him taking the computer along and trying it out before
he parts with any money. If this would not be possible, then given the
friendliness of Acorn dealers in general, it may be possible to buy the
sharer boxes and extra parallel leads from one of them with an agreement
to return them for a refund if it does not work. After checking the
Archive price list, I notice that NCS do not stock sharer boxes, but
Beebug stock both auto and manual models and it may be worth bending
their ear in this direction. Iáwould be most interested to hear the
outcome of any tests.
9.06
Wither dongles? Whither CC?
9.06
A report in the February issue of Acorn User states that Computer
Concepts are to give up using dongles. This will undoubtedly result in
far fewer printing problems but I must admit that I am not entirely
satisfied. Had CC stated that they were also to abandon the non-standard
cable that accompanies Turbo Driver, I would be happier, but they have
given no indication of this. If CC are still prepared to use hardware
protection on TD, why are they not continuing with dongles? The answer
is cost and, Iábelieve, lies in the imminent release of Beebugæs Ovation
Pro. I also think it reflects badly on Computer Conceptsæ recent
attitude to the Acorn market.
9.06
Charles Moir has stated that CC are not about to abandon the Acorn
market. I believe him, but also consider his words to have been very
carefully chosen. I think that he means by this that CC will continue to
support existing products, but not, as could be construed from the
statement, that they will develop new ones. Supplying Impression
Publisher and Artworks without dongles will mean that they can meet the
new challenge from Beebug by lowering prices and instigating a price war
in the DTP software field. Cheaper prices are one thing, but I would
rather that CC took on the new challenger by improving Impression to the
levels now seen on the high end PC products, while retaining the ease of
use we take for granted in the Acorn field. This would almost certainly
require a large scale rewrite which I do not think CC have the heart to
attempt.
9.06
Their changing attitude to the Acorn market over the past couple of
years has become more obvious. When the Archimedes was first launched,
CC were so incensed by the Arthur operating system (and rightly so) that
they announced Impulse, their own operating system which was planned to
compete with the Acorn OS. After Acorn outlined plans for RISC OS, they
backed down, but the intent was there.
9.06
If the same spirit existed within the company towards the Acorn market
as it did then, I believe that rather than complain about Acorn not
providing a proper C++ implementation and supporting libraries, CC would
write it themselves. It strikes me as a rather odd complaint from a
company that has always prided itself on writing in pure ARM code,
anyway. They now blame Acorn for not being able to port over Xara Studio
from the PC, as they no doubt will for the lack of new Impression
versions.
9.06
For Computer Concepts to move over to coding in C++ has benefits for
them. It will mean that they can develop new products for both the PC
and Acorn markets almost in tandem. I do not think that this will
benefit Acorn owners to any great degree. What it would mean for us is
huge applications with large hard disk and memory requirements, as seen
on the PC nowadays.
9.06
If Ovation Pro is as good as its pre-release hype, and if Beebug do not
attach any intrusive protection to it, I can see it becoming the main
DTP package for the Acorn platform very quickly. Price cuts in the
Impression family will not stop that becoming a reality. After all, due
to functionality, speed of operation and ease of use, Impression became
the most popular DTP package on Acorn machines, in spite of the dongle
and three other cheaper DTP packages being on the market. Its success
was solely due to it being the best Ö a position that may well be lost
over the next couple of months.
9.06
It is a shame that Computer Concepts do not appear to be able to rise to
this challenge. Just as Impression has become dated when compared to
what is available on other platforms, without competition, the same fate
will be in store for its successor. This is obviously bad for Acorn
users in the long term.
9.06
The dongle may be dead but please give only a polite round of ironic
applause, and another if the non-standard cable on Turbo Driver becomes
extinct. These problematic devices were foisted on us by Computer
Concepts in the first place. Save your heartiest of cheers for Computer
Concepts announcing a completely new version of Impression (or Artworks
come to that). Sadly, I suspect that you will never have to cheer at
all.
9.06
Finally
9.06
I now have a scanner, so I hope to be able to conduct an investigation
on how best to scan for printing and photocopying in time for next
monthæs column. I will follow this by taking a close look at the Epson
GT¡9000 with its supplied Irlam software and the Calligraph direct drive
printer. Any printing related problems or suggestions for future
articles should be sent to Dave Floyd, c/o PO Box 2795, London NW10
9AY.áuá
9.06
Fly the Atlantic
9.06
Christopher Jarman
9.06
There is an old saying that used to be trotted out amongst Fleet Air Arm
observers, öI ainæt never been lost in my life, but I was uncertain of
my position for three days once!ò After playing about with Topologikaæs
Navigator program for three or four days, I would think that any pupil
should have learned enough about navigating never to be lost at any
time.
9.06
I was very pleased to review this activity pack entitled ÉFly the
Atlanticæ because it enabled me to explore the parent program,
Navigator, thoroughly as well, in order to work it. Navigator is a
content-free software pack which needs maps and instructions dropped
into it to teach mapping skills. It was reviewed very favourably by
George Barnett in Archive 7.11 p79 and won a Silver Award at the Bett
æ94 Show.
9.06
It is, in fact, a specialised authoring program something like a basic
version of Genesis, but with the dedicated tools to show compass
bearings and distances, vectors and even a simple turtle system. Maps
are entered as drawfiles and the small boats or aeroplanes, helicopters
or even feet, which are sent along the various routes, can be designed
as sprites. Of course, there are plenty of these resources provided, but
many enthusiasts prefer to design their own as soon as the process is
understood.
9.06
Navigator comes complete with a number of activities, from the simplest
Ö find your route to school, your classroom, your desk Ö through to
orienteering and sailing off Falmouth in a yacht.
9.06
ÉFly the Atlanticæ is an extra activity sold as a separate pack. It has
been written by Steve Cheesman who is both an Acorn enthusiast and a
Boeing 747 pilot. Itácomes on a single 800Kb floppy disc and is
compressed using !Spark. There is also a 15 page Flight Guide of loose
leaf notes. It is aimed at Key Stage 2 Geography and Maths.
9.06
The program is on the disc in two forms, easy and hard. This is such a
good idea that I think it should be taken up by many other educational
packages.
9.06
To begin with, you must first load Navigator. When this is on the
iconbar you can then insert the Fly Atlantic disc and open the
compressed directory FlyAtlanti (sic). If you do not have a hard disc,
you will need a complete 800Kb disc for each version. This is all simply
explained in the accompanying textfiles. The extensive explanations
provided for everything may seem tedious for the very experienced, but
it shows Topologikaæs long educational pedigree in that almost every
possible problem has been forestalled.
9.06
It is very good advice to start with the easy version. The first page
shows the side view of the front of a Boeing 747 and two footprints of
you, the pilot, which must be positioned in the cockpit. You click into
page 2, which is a plan of terminal 4 at Heathrow. Using the Tiny Turtle
method, you then tow your aircraft out to the hard standing and await
instructions. You are then told to start engines and taxi to the runway,
then you take off and climb to 2000 feet. Here the vector mapping
ability of the program is cleverly turned sideways and your pathway up
through the air to your destined height is plotted.
9.06
(I have one small gripe here which does not detract from the value of
the package, but should be mentioned. Please could educational software
houses take a lead in checking the simple grammar of presentations? The
perennial clanger here is of giving Éitsæ an apostrophe when it doesnæt
have one Ö see the Heathrow picture, top right.)
9.06
It all has a very authentic feel about it as Steve Cheesman has clearly
made sure that his drawings and charts are as close to the real thing as
possible. You follow instructions and navigate your way via the correct
waypoints across to Kennedy Airport USA. There you land on the correct
runway and taxi to the terminal.
9.06
The easy version is mostly done using the simplest rubber band technique
which is the best way of carrying the pupil painlessly through the
procedures to a successful end. By the time you come to the harder
version, you understand what is expected and can concentrate on the
various ways in which you are expected to navigate, from the simple
turtle to the more complex turtle, to entering in bearings and distances
which you have to work out from the compass. As you get more proficient,
you can begin to estimate bearings and distances, more and more like a
genuine navigator. There are, of course, ways also available to check
your guesses.
9.06
I have always believed that there is no finer way of teaching map skills
than through simple navigation, particularly if it is combined with the
kind of role playing that this package encourages. This is a first class
educational program that also has far greater possibilities in
navigational training than even the excellent activities so far
provided. I can envisage London taxi drivers doing ÉThe Knowledgeæ using
this application. It would not take much trouble to convert the London A
to Z to drawfiles for the purpose. All that is required for the job
after that, is already in the package. I would like to see a serious
package for holiday-makers helping them to find the best routes through
Europe. And what about Yachtsmen? I have already started on a Guide to
little-known harbours in the Balearics!
9.06
Top marks for originality and top marks for value, as much for
enthusiasts as for the classroom.
9.06
Navigator costs ú45 +VAT +ú2.50 p&p from Topologika (ú52 through
Archive), and Fly the Atlantic costs ú15 +VAT +ú2.50 p&p (ú19 through
Archive).áuá
9.06
Starting Basic 7 Ö Branching
9.06
Ray Favre
9.06
In our ÉLoanæ project weæve reached a point where we want the program to
carry out some calculations to find the value of the fourth (Éunknownæ)
parameter, having input the values of the other three parameters. The
trouble is, the precise calculation depends on which of the four
parameters is the Éunknownæ one. So we need a means of branching the
program under our control along one of a number of paths Ö and the CASE
... OF ... WHEN ... OTHERWISE ... ENDCASE construction fits the bill.
9.06
CASE ... OF ... WHEN ... OTHERWISE ... ENDCASE
9.06
The general form of this construction is:
9.06
CASE <expression> OF
9.06
  WHEN <expressionA>
9.06
       (do something)
9.06
  WHEN <expressionB>
9.06
       (do something)
9.06
     ............
9.06
    ............
9.06
     WHEN <expressionN>
9.06
       (do something)
9.06
     OTHERWISE
9.06
       (do something)
9.06
ENDCASE
9.06
<expression> can be any numeric or string expression (e.g. a variable).
The current value of this expression is then compared with the values of
<expressionA>, <expressionB>, etc. in turn until a match is found. If a
match is found, the Édo somethingæ corresponding to that match is
carried out. If no match is found, the program carries out the Édo
somethingæ attached to the OTHERWISE statement Ö if there is one (itæs
optional) Ö or Édrops out the bottomæ at the ENDCASE line.
9.06
However, there are several important features to note:
9.06
Å The CASE statement must be the last statement on its program line. (My
version of the BBC Basic Reference Manual is wrong about this in its
alphabetical section on Keywords Ö but correct in its descriptive
chapter on Control Statements!) The OF must be the last item on that
line. (Unlike after THEN in the IF ... THEN ... ENDIF case, it does not
seem to matter if you add spaces after the OF.)
9.06
Å WHEN must be the first statement on a line. (Anything put between the
CASE statement and the first WHEN statement appears to be ignored Ö
there must be a practical use for this feature!)
9.06
Å There can be as many WHEN statements as you like.
9.06
Å A WHEN statement can have as many <expressionX> items following it as
you like, each one separated by a comma. This permits identical actions
for different <expression> values.
9.06
Å The Édo somethingæ instructions can be on the same line as their CASE
statement, separated by a colon Ö or can be multi-line statements.
Everything up to the next WHEN (or OTHERWISE, or ENDCASE) is taken as
part of the Édo somethingæ instructions for the previous WHEN.
9.06
Å If there is more than one match, only the first one (lowest line
number) will be actioned: i.e. after a match is found and its Édo
somethingæ instructions have been executed, the program goes straight to
the ENDCASE line Ö it does not continue checking for further matches.
This is a very important point to take account of in some programs.
9.06
It is worth concentrating on the <expression> and <expressionX> items.
In any one construction, they must each be able to be evaluated to the
same type of value i.e. real or integer, numeric or string. They cannot
be mixed. Here are some examples:
9.06
CASE (Colour% MOD 7) OF
9.06
    WHEN 0: PRINTöBlackò
9.06
    WHEN 1: PRINTöRedò
9.06
    WHEN 2: PRINTöGreenò
9.06
    OTHERWISE PRINTöNot interestedò
9.06
ENDCASE
9.06
(Colour% MOD 7) will evaluate to an integer number, so putting a
selection of integers with WHEN statements will work OK.
9.06
CASE Celebration$ OF
9.06
    WHEN Birthday$, Retirement$
9.06
      PRINTöHappy ò;Celebration$:PROCgift
9.06
    WHEN Wedding$
9.06
      PRINTöGood Luck!ò
9.06
      PROCgift
9.06
ENDCASE
9.06
Celebration$ will have a certain string assigned to it at the time the
CASE construction is called. If that string is identical to the string
assigned at that time to Birthday$ or Retirement$, the message öHappy
Birthdayò or öHappy Retirementò, respectively, will be printed and
PROCgift carried out.
9.06
CASE TRUE OF
9.06
WHEN (ascii%>64 AND ascii<91):PRINTöCapital Letterò
9.06
WHEN ascii<32:PRINTöNot printableò
9.06
ENDCASE
9.06
Using TRUE in the CASE statement can offer wide flexibility, but you
have to ensure that the WHEN statements carry <expressionX> items which
will evaluate to TRUE or FALSE.
9.06
CASE GET$ OF
9.06
WHEN öAò: PRINTöAcornò
9.06
WHEN öAò, öEò, öIò, öOò, öUò :PRINTöVowelò
9.06
ENDCASE
9.06
Straightforward, but an often useful use of GET$. Note the deliberate
Émistakeæ here Ö if you press öAò you will get öAcornò and not öVowelò
because it meets that comparison first. If you reversed the line order,
öAcornò would never be printed.
9.06
Other branching constructions
9.06
BBC Basic does have another construction for branching, the ON ... GOSUB
form. However, this was a construction available in the very early
versions of Basic, before CASE ... OF was added. It has been kept for
compatibility but it is not recommended for current use.
9.06
In addition, you can often think up ways of using nested IF ... THEN ...
ENDIF constructions to get multiple branching. But why bother?!
9.06
Before updating our ÉLoanæ program we need to look at one more Basic
construction ...
9.06
FOR ... TO ... NEXT ... STEP
9.06
This is probably the simplest of the Basic loop constructions Ö and it
is the fastest. It is used whenever you want a loop process to occur a
known number of times. The general form is:
9.06
FOR Counter% = Start% TO Finish% STEP Step%
9.06
    (Do something)
9.06
NEXT Counter%
9.06
but more commonly it is seen like this:
9.06
FOR Counter% = Start% TO Finish%
9.06
    (Do something)
9.06
NEXT
9.06
The loop counter Counter% is initially set to the value in variable
Start% and letæs assume, for the moment, that Step% is positive. The
program then carries out the (do something). When NEXT is reached,
Counter% is incremented by the value held in the variable Step% and, if
the new value of Counter% is less than Finish%, the loop is re¡entered.
This continues until incrementing Counter% makes it larger than Finish%.
When that happens, the loop exits immediately.
9.06
If Step% is negative, Counter% is reduced each time round the loop Ö and
the loop then exits when Counter% becomes less than Finish%.
9.06
As already hinted, the STEP keyword is optional. Without it, the step is
+1. Also, there is no need to include the loop counter name Counter%
with the NEXT instruction Ö Basic keeps track without this and it is
more of an aid to the programmer. (Indenting helps the programmer
sufficiently usually, but if you prefer to show the counter name, then
do it!)
9.06
The construction is free of most constraints and can be made wholly or
partially part of multi-statement lines.
9.06
There are only two points to note: firstly, there is no way to avoid
going through the (doásomething) at least once Ö whatever the values of
Start%, Finish% and Step%. Secondly, read the above description of what
happens to Counter% very carefully Ö when the loop exits, it leaves
Counter% with a value different to Finish%. Most frequently, when Step%
is not used, Counter% will end up being equal from Finish% + 1. This
often doesnæt matter, but if you are subsequently going to use Counter%
for something else Ö be warned!
9.06
To ensure you are thoroughly familiar with what happens, itæs worth
playing with the following short program. Enter Basic from a Task Window
(see Partá1) and type in:
9.06
10 FOR Counter% = 1 TO 9 STEP 3
9.06
20   PRINT Counter%
9.06
30 NEXT
9.06
40 PRINT öOn exit, Counter% = ò; STR$(Counter%)
9.06
50 END
9.06
As it stands, if you run this, the result is a list of the numbers 1, 4,
7 only, with Counter% ending up with the value 10. Did you expect that?
Explore further for Éhomeworkæ by changing the values in line 10 and
noting the results.
9.06
Back to the project
9.06
In ÉLoan_7Aæ on the disc, PROCcalculations has had a straightforward
CASE ... OF construction put in it Ö using the string variable Unknown$
in the CASE expression and four WHEN statements (one for each of the
four possible letters with which Unknown$ can be assigned). The
appropriate calculation PROC is then called. In ÉLoan_7Aæ these four
different calculation PROCs have been left empty, but in ÉLoan_7Bæ three
of them have been completed and these three will produce a valid result.
Youæll see a typical FOR ... NEXT loop used in one of them.
9.06
As this series is about programming and not finance(!) I need not
discuss these three calculation PROCs in detail, although there are a
few programming points to bring out. However, to enable you to follow
the calculations, I do need to tell you the formula used. It is:
9.06
L / P = B + B2 + B3 + B4 + ........... + BN-1 + BN
9.06
where B = 100 / (100 + R), and:
9.06
L = Loan Amount (ú)
9.06
P = Amount of monthly payment (ú)
9.06
N = Number of equal monthly payments
9.06
R = Monthly interest rate (%)
9.06
(Donæt write to tell me if itæs wrong!) You will see that the completed
calculation PROCs are for those three cases where R is known. It is then
a question of manipulating the formula for the specific unknown in each
case and producing the corresponding program instructions to reflect
them. Let me know if you feel they deserve more said about these
calculations Ö Iáhave included extra information for those taking the
printed listings service.
9.06
The main programming point to bring out from these calculations is that
where a factor occurs repeatedly (like B in the above), it is always
best to calculate that factor once at the start and store the result in
a variable Ö then refer to that variable subsequently. This is
particularly important if you are using the various trigonometric and/or
logarithmic functions provided in Basic (which we will be mentioning in
due course). They consume a lot of processing power and it just doesnæt
make sense to repeat such calculations unnecessarily. So, in our case,
we start each calculation PROC with one such factor calculation.
9.06
The second point arises in FNsigma(NumOfPayments%)at line 2300. Note
that the parameter in the brackets of the DEF FN is an integer Ö yet in
lines 2220 and 2760 we call the FN passing a real number. We are
deliberately using our knowledge (see Parts 3 and 4) that if we try to
assign a non-integer number to an integer variable, it will be assigned
with only the integer part of that number Ö and without declaring an
error. By using this feature here, we effectively correct any non-
integer values entered for ÉNæ at the previous user-input stage. Note
the prominent REM at line 2310 to alert us to what weæve done.
9.06
The third point concerns the printed output when the result is a real
number. If you run ÉLoan7_Bæ and choose either ÉLæ or ÉPæ as the unknown
parameter and feed in some values for the known items, the result will
be printed to several decimal places Ö not very realistic when it
represents a sum of money. We need to convert it to just 2 decimal
places i.e. pounds and pence, whatever the result. ÉLoan_7Cæ does this
by adding FNnumberToString() but, as usual, there are other ways
available. The function uses string operators heavily, which we will
cover in more detail next time, but see if you can follow it. Note
particularly that the FN converts the number to a string Ö a very common
practice in Wimp programs.
9.06
Next time
9.06
Before we attempt to make any further major changes to our ÉLoanæ
program, I want to pick up a few topics already introduced but not yet
explained Ö and then to start introducing graphics from scratch, in
preparation for using graphics to complete the, as yet untouched, fourth
calculation item i.e. when the interest rate is the unknown parameter.
So, keep ÉLoan_7Cæ safe Ö we will start to develop it further in Part
10.
9.06
Donæt forget the feedback, queries (and A4 SAEs for printed listings)
to: 26 West Drayton Park Avenue, West Drayton, Middlesex, UB7 7QA.áuá
9.06
I just want to underline Rayæs request for feedback. He is putting a lot
of effort into this series, so he needs to know if it is hitting the
mark. Is it telling you what you want to know? If you want to respond
but prefer to use email, send your comments to me at <[e-mail]
.uk> and I will forward them. Thanks. Ed.
9.06
Artworks Video Guide
9.06
Christopher Jarman
9.06
I was one of the lucky few who managed to get a half-hour tutorial with
Walter Briggs at the Acorn Show in October. He showed me some of the
finer points of Pineappleæs Studio 24Pro. He was so frank about the fact
that he had only learnt how to do certain things with it himself that
very morning, that it greatly endeared him to me.
9.06
As winner of the first CC Artworks competition, Walter was just the
right person to make this video. The one hour guide is aimed squarely at
beginners, with the hope that more experienced users will also get
something from it. I am not a beginner, but I certainly learned several
things that repeated reading of the manuals had still not revealed to
me.
9.06
(For the first time, I found out about <ctrl-f9> for aligning objects.)
9.06
The tutorial begins with Walter introducing himself, then he goes
straight into Artworks from the point of view of the absolute beginner.
He shows you how to load the program, how to start and what the tools on
the toolbar are for. This approach is excellent in my opinion, as almost
all manuals that I see, assume too much knowledge on the part of the
reader. The video makes it clear that you should know how to work your
Acorn machine, but you need know nothing about Artworks. Slowly, and
keeping the viewer fully involved, the video reveals how to make shapes,
fill them, move them about, line them up and so on.
9.06
The techniques used are good quality shots of the screen with Walteræs
voice-over explaining what he is doing and why he is doing it. Having
gone deftly through the use of the tools, he moves into showing step-by-
step how he traces his famous picture of a tigeræs head from a
photograph and fixes the transparency to the screen. Showing the value
of the layer system in the program, he takes us through a well-prepared
sequence from the tigeræs eyes to the mouth and tongue. I cannot say he
makes it easy to achieve the same skill, but he makes it easy for you to
see how it is done.
9.06
With the video, you can replay it as many times as you wish to get the
tricks of the trade. If you have been used to using only Draw, be
prepared to be amazed, for Artworks does all that Draw can do but so
much more easily. Judging by the clips I have seen, many Artworks users
do not make full use of the graduated fill, radial fill and blend tools.
This video will help you to see how it is possible to combine all three
constantly, to produce organic forms.
9.06
The final sequence is much more easily copied. Walter shows how to make
a simple imaginative seascape in a very few strokes. If this last
painting doesnæt tempt you to have a go and start making you own clipart
collection, you donæt deserve to have a computer!
9.06
I look forward to more videos, perhaps with a CD-ROM of clips as well,
being sold with more and more advanced techniques being shared. There is
no doubt that we are now changing from a time when computer enthusiasts
tried their hands at a bit of art, to the present era where real artists
are able to use the software as a medium in its own right.
9.06
The advantage of watching a video in this way is that the information
comes up on a screen in the same visual form as your computer. It may
seem to be stating the obvious, but there are many of us out here who
were not brought up on the BBC Micro, and for whom the TV and video
screens are familiar and acceptable in the way that computers may not be
at first.
9.06
Artworks Video Guide costs ú19.99 inc VAT, carriage free from Pineapple
Software or ú19 through Archive.áuá
9.06
Dinosaurs & Musical Instruments
9.06
Andrew Rawnsley
9.06
What I am reviewing here is two CDs by Microsoft(!) but donæt turn over
yet because they are not Windows products Ö they are for RISCáOS
machines. These two new multimedia products have been converted by
Innovative Media Solutions (IMS). They provided reader software which
uses the original CD data to create a product almost identical to the
original. (What is more, IMS are working on other conversions, such as
Encarta æ96, and they run better than the original CDs did under Windows
on a pentium!)
9.06
Indeed, when you purchase a title from IMS, you receive the full
Microsoft product on CD-ROM, with a disc allowing you to drive the
software from your Acorn, under RISC OS. This software is simply a port
of what would have to be installed on your system by the Windows version
of the install program anyway, so Acorn users certainly donæt lose out!
9.06
The two products, Dinosaurs and Musical Instruments, are being reviewed
together as they are the first two titles from Microsoftæs Exploration
Series. Fundamentally, they are similar, with a consistent style and
presentation. Obviously, the information is different, and Dinosaurs is
slightly more advanced, but the feel and ease of use allows them to work
well together, particularly in a home or classroom environment Ö
although headphones are recommended!
9.06
Whatæs more, both products integrate well into the RISC OS desktop
environment, despite their Windows origins. The RISC OS window frames,
which often get in the way when viewing multimedia titles, are played
down, with the pages of information having a half-height title bar, to
avoid clutter. IMS have made sure that their software supports the
latest Acorn multimedia standards such as 16-bit stereo sound. Future
titles will support software playback of Midi files and even Indeo and
AVI video footage, without the need for specialist external software/
hardware.
9.06
Musical Instruments
9.06
The first thing that struck me about this program was its comprehensive
nature. Every instrument in the encyclopedia has a minimum of one page
of text and illustrations dedicated to it, with at least one sound
snippet so that you can hear the instrument in action. One might have
expected some of the more obscure instruments to have been glossed over,
with a bias towards orchestral/traditional instruments and video
snippets.
9.06
However, this is not the case, as my explorations of Aboriginal
Australian music unearthed! I now know what a Bullroarer looks and
sounds like, as well as the instruments to which it is related, namely
the Didjeridu and Harmonica. Clicking on the picture of the Didjeridu, I
continued my investigation. Having listened to the sample of the
instrument, and heard the correct pronunciation (very useful for some of
the more exotic types), I discovered this instrument to be a distant
member of the Trumpet family, and proceeded to click on the Serpent...
9.06
Iæll stop there as I hope this has given an insight into how the product
develops. Each page of information is connected to many others through
geographic, playing-style or music field links. All diagrams and
illustrations are annotated, and pages can be saved out for use in
project work. Printing is possible, using standard Acorn printer
drivers. Future versions may also allow the sounds to be exported for
use in music packages and Midi synthesizers.
9.06
Beginning your exploration
9.06
The contents page allows you to begin exploring from the following
angles:
9.06
    Families of Instruments
9.06
    Musical Ensembles
9.06
    Instruments of the World
9.06
    A-Z of Instruments
9.06
You can search for a particular instrument using the Index, a button
which is always available. This list is fairly comprehensive, so proves
a useful jumping-off point.
9.06
Once youæve begun, the categories become blurred, as you would expect.
It is, of course, the method by which you come to the information which
is important. Simply clicking on the saxophone or trombone from the
index isnæt as valuable as obtaining the same page of information, but
through sections on jazz and big bands. It is this linking of
information that makes multimedia titles so much more effective than a
text or reference book, certainly in the classroom, though this review
copy will be staying firmly as a home resource Ö it has proved popular
with young and old alike.
9.06
The only criticism of the product is its help system, which is really
just a text file displayed in a fixed size window. Under Windows this
would have been a hypertext file, similar to HTML web documents. The
Acorn variant doesnæt have this interactivity, making it less practical.
However, if youæve got that far, then you probably donæt need help
anyway, as everythingæs so clear and easy.
9.06
The conclusion to the overture
9.06
Overall, this title is superb. Whether used as an education tool or as a
fun reference work which shows your machine off to its true potential,
you shouldnæt miss it. The only consideration should be whether your
hardware meets the specifications Ö ARM 3, 4Mb RAM, double speed CD-ROM
drive and, preferably, a multisync monitor.
9.06
Multimedia Dinosaurs
9.06
The second title to be released by IMS, on behalf of Microsoft, is this
investigation of all things prehistoric. I feel that this title has
arrived a little late Ö the tide of Jurassic Park mania and tie-in
products has died down, but then Acorn owners rather missed out. As
another generation of children grows up, there will always be a
fascination with these huge relics of the Earthæs past.
9.06
Unfortunately, Microsoftæs offering is rather superficial, and relies
heavily on bonus items such as a dinosaur screen saver, dinosaur video
sequences (stored as AVI files which IMS hope to support by the time you
read this), and pictures which can be turned into Éwallpapersæ (a.k.a.
pinboard backdrops) for your desktop. The latter are designed for
640╫480 desktops, which are too small for practical use on an Acorn
system. Scaling the images results in them becoming fuzzy. You can
always save the images out and view them in Paint, or include them in
DTP documents.
9.06
On the plus side, this CD is very well presented, even better than
Musical Instruments. Buttons go in and out when pressed, and are stored
as illustrations rather than standard RISC OS buttons. Many of the
dialogue boxes, and related buttons, are attractively textured, using
yellows, greens and browns, to a Édinosaur colouræ.
9.06
You can explore the dinosaurs geographically, from a timeline, or by
family. As usual, the illustrations are beautiful, complete with
multimedia annotations, but sound is limited to random roars and foot
stomping. Again, pronunciation of the dinosaur names is available. There
is a voice-over commentary, but this tends to get in the way more often
than not.
9.06
To add another angle to the fairly limited material available, you can
take a guided tour. These consist of pre-select pages with different
voice-overs, which link the pages together. For example, you can look at
Éfinding dinosaur bonesæ, which covers fossils, excavation, sites of
existing finds, and also dinosaur museums (North America only,
apparently!). The commentary explains key points, and leads you through,
although the language and turn of phrase is a little juvenile, so it
wasnæt too popular with older family members.
9.06
Guided tours cover everything from spotting dinosaurs, to eggs and
dinosaur young, to the design of dinosaurs. I feel these tours are where
most of the value comes, but they are let down by a lack of
interactivity. For example, the build-your-own-dinosaur tour had lots of
potential Ö I would have liked to stick bones together and see the
result fleshed out Ö but the material was limited to showing the longest
neck, most fearsome claws, best body armour, etc. You didnæt actually
get to build anything!
9.06
To conclude, I would really only recommend this title if you have
children of the right age range (primary school, really Ö under 10).
This is not intended for serious dinosaur enthusiasts, who might find
the material limited, but for the novice, it could make for an
attractive introduction. Itæll also make friends jolly envious, because
the presentation is terrific.
9.06
Overall conclusions
9.06
Both Musical Instruments and Multimedia Dinosaurs are pleasing additions
to the Acorn software portfolio. The latter has a specific target
market, and sticks to it without deviation, whereas Musical Instruments
has appeal for everyone. Both titles should be a success, and Iæm just
looking forward to the future ports of Dangerous Creatures, Ancient
Lands and, most importantly, Encarta æ96.
9.06
IMS are also porting the Dorling Kindersley range, which should add
another string to Acornæs bow.
9.06
Finally (should you want to!), you can also run both CDs under Windows
on a PC card, if available, which adds further possibilities.áuá
9.06
Land, Sea & Air
9.06
Chris Coe
9.06
To be honest, when looking at the cover of the box, Iáwasnæt
particularly impressed. It was a black and white screenshot that
appeared to have pretty poor graphics. Well, I was right about the
graphics Ö they are pretty poor Ö but what gameplay!
9.06
Land, Sea & Air was introduced to me as a Écut-down Sim City 2000
cloneæ. In fact, it only bears a passing resemblance to SC2000, since
the objectives and gameplay are quite different. This game reminds me
more of Transport Tycoon on the PC. In both of these games, the idea is
simply to make a colossal mountain of money by transporting goods and
passengers from place to place by any means at your disposal. In Land,
Sea & Air, those means are exactly that Ö trains, boats and planes. This
game is almost pure strategy and, in keeping with games of this nature,
there are oodles of options you can tinker with, and a vast array of
decisions to be made.
9.06
The game runs in its own windows environment, a bit like Sim City 2000,
but not as slick or consistent. Nevertheless, thatæs not really a
problem because, once youæve got the screen set up the way you want it,
you wonæt need to play with the windows too much. On starting the game,
you get to set various options which will affect the level of
difficulty. These range from speed of opponent to water density! You can
also change the name of your transport company and so on.
9.06
When you get into the game proper, you are initially presented with
three windows, showing you your financial situation, your current status
and a portion of the game map. There are various buildings dotted about,
each of which supply and want various goods. Some also take one item and
turn it into another; for example, car factories turn steel into cars.
So, the first thing to do is link up two reasonably close sites where
each site supplies what the other needs.
9.06
Start with the trains
9.06
There are several steps involved in this. First of all, you need to
build two stations. Stations vary in price according to their catchment
area, but to start with, you can use the cheapest, which just capture
buildings in the immediate vicinity. Then, you link them with some train
track. Next, you build a train (you may need to order one if there
arenæt any in your storage stock).
9.06
At this point, the timetabling system comes into play. This is a very
sophisticated way of getting trains to go to various places, dropping
off and picking up cargo as they go along. You can have up to ten
carriage configurations, which you fill with the type of rolling stock
you will be needing (for passengers, iron ore, coal, farm produce and so
on).
9.06
Then, you define a timetable by clicking on a sequence of stations and
the configuration to pick up at that station. It seems overly
complicated at first Ö it took me half an hour to figure it out Ö but
eventually you realize that itæs really quite clever. Then, hey presto,
the train starts moving and the cargo is ferried around to the right
places. After that, itæs just a matter of expanding your infrastructure
ad infinitum.
9.06
Unfortunately, itæs not quite as simple as that because there can be up
to four other computer-controlled opponents also trying to get a slice
of the action, which makes for some pretty tough gameplay (unless, like
me, you make them really poor on the difficulty settings screen).
9.06
The boats and planes
9.06
Sea and air networks arenæt as complicated as the train network. This is
probably because the game is the sequel to Days of Steam, which was
concentrated solely on trains. That game had 2D graphics, but there is
now an isometric projection of the game map, which is obviously much
better. Setting up boats and planes is simply a matter of building a
seaport or airport, ordering the appropriate type of boat or plane and
setting a new timetable.
9.06
The timetabling system is different from the trains because boats and
planes go abroad to collect and deliver items, which simplifies things a
tad. When you first build a port, it has a number of items waiting to go
to a number of places. By investing in some advertising, you can get
yourself in the running for contracts to supply new places. If this
happens, you have to bid against your competitors for the deal. If you
have two or more seaports or airports, you can have routes between these
for cruise ferries and passenger planes.
9.06
Keeping control
9.06
As with any game of this nature, there are rather too many things to
keep under control, from finances to oil disasters, and it all adds to
the fun! While there are some buildings spread around the map at the
start of the game, by pouring as much money as you can into particular
buildings, whole villages and cities spring up due to their newly-found
wealth. Also, there are some buildings which you can build yourself,
from paper mills to football stadia.
9.06
Criticisms
9.06
First of all, the manual is very brief and does not, in my opinion,
cover everything in nearly enough detail for you to get the most out of
the game. It might not seem too important, but when you consider the
complexities involved, it would be nice to have a useful reference
guide. A tutorial would have been useful too. There were also several
things I found in the game which werenæt documented at all.
9.06
Secondly, the interface is inconsistent. For example, you can rename
trains but you canæt rename planes. Also, with the button icons for the
boat and plane information windows, although they both operate in
exactly the same way, they have different names and are arranged
differently. Some windows for some types of transport, work slightly
differently, and all this adds up to a fair bit of annoyance.
9.06
Thirdly, the graphics, while reasonable for a strategy game, are not
really up to much, especially when compared to games of this type on
other platforms.
9.06
By far the most serious gripe for me is that you can only play through
30 years of game time before you are forced to resign. The idea is that
you do as much as possible within the timeframe set, but it would have
been nice to include an option to allow you to play on and build a
massive empire. I have spoken to the author about this one, and he
promises a new version soon which will include this option and answer a
number of my criticisms. There were a number of other small problems,
but nothing of significance.
9.06
This is one of the most-played games I have had for several months. Once
you suss it out, itæs very addictive and itæll have you going back to
improve your score every time. You can start simple, and as you get more
confident, you can introduce new problems via the difficulty settings
window. Thereæs more than enough to keep you occupied and, overall, I
can recommend this game wholeheartedly Ö there are not many land
management simulation games for Acorn machines that are of the calibre
of the PC games (Transport Tycoon, Settlers, Theme Park, the Sim series
etc.), so if those sort of games are your cup of tea, Land, Sea & Air is
an essential purchase.
9.06
Land, Sea & Air runs on all 2Mb RISC OS machines, except the RiscPC, and
costs ú19.95 inclusive from UKáSoftware. áuá
9.06
British Isles from the Air CD
9.06
Christopher Jarman
9.06
Anglia CD-ROMs get better all the time. British Isles from the Air is
the most recent that I have seen, and it is stunning! It is Angliaæs
policy to offer CDs which, if possible, will run on Acorn, PC and Apple
Mac, and this one certainly works on all three. The photos are by
Aerofilms who are the foremost agency for aerial photography in the UK.
9.06
You need 4Mb of RAM and RISC OS 3.1 or above. The screen mode
recommended is and 640╫480 in 256 colours but, on a RiscPC, I preferred
to view it on 1024╫768 on a 17ö monitor. Either way the pictures are
exciting and many are quite superb. If only I had learnt geography this
way! Still it is not too late, and I am enjoying finding out about my
own country by means of this valuable resource.
9.06
When you load the disc at first, you soon come to the menu page.
Angliaæs current trademark for these is to use a scene which is relevant
to the environment of the program. Just as the menu for the Seashore CD
was set inside a lighthouse, so this one is in the cockpit of a
helicopter. Click on the window scenery to be taken to various groupings
of the photos. There is also an informative section on how the photos
were made.
9.06
Having made your choice, you then have a long list of photos under your
selected category. Click on a title and up comes a picture, always clear
and with a concise description and its location in latitude, longitude
and grid reference. The little 12-page booklet which comes inside the
CDæs plastic case tells you all you need to know about installing the CD
and accessing the pictures.
9.06
Cleverly, the pictures are not taken from too close in because, in this
sort of instance, it is very important to be able to view the wider
context of the subject. On TV, we are often shown Wimbledon from the air
for example. Here we can see not only the huge stadium, but also a
substantial part of the suburb and the hill which rises from the side.
The image is good enough to zoom in to a selected part of it if desired.
(There is no zoom facility by the way, which I would like to have seen,
but changing the screen to a smaller mode size can do quite a lot
towards enlarging a picture you wish to scrutinise.) Every page has the
facility to choose a desktop or a full screen view plus the marvellous
ability to save out each screen as a sprite. So all these pictures may
be used in other educational products in school by pupils or teachers.
9.06
There are more than 230 photos of Britain in this package and there is
no reason to suppose that schools or educational bodies will be the only
people to want to use it. Any adult with an interest in the country
could happily spend hours pouring over these views.
9.06
There is the usual quite forceful copyright notice included and so I
have no idea how Anglia would respond to requests for more commercial
uses of the pictures. One can see so much potential for tourist
information, the Internet, and so on, that it may be possible to obtain
permission for some usage.
9.06
Verdict Ö quite mouth-watering and very good value. Britain from the Air
CD costs ú39 +VAT from Anglia Multimedia or ú45 through Archive.áuá
9.06
Portfolio
9.06
Dave Wilcox
9.06
Portfolio is a very simple media display tool produced by WECC,
(Warwickshire Educational Computing Centre). The program lets you
display a sequence of graphic images and, if appropriate, associated
sound samples. It is a nice presentation package, suitable for home,
school or business use.
9.06
What do you get?
9.06
The software comes in a plastic fold-over wallet containing four discs
and an A5 manual. The manual consists of 36 pages, is well written and
well presented, and explains the software in a concise manner which will
have anybody making presentations in no time at all.
9.06
Disc one contains the program, !System and !Scrap, taking up a massive
160Kb. The rest of the disc and the other three discs are filled with
example presentations, used to good effect to show how simple the
software is to use.
9.06
Requirements
9.06
The minimum requirements for this package are RISC OS 3.1 or higher,
preferably a hard drive, (itáwill run from floppy, only slower) and 2Mb
of memory. Obviously, if you start using high resolution graphics and
large JPEG files or the like, a larger memory machine will be needed.
When using these files, it must also be noted that the timing will be
inconsistent with the configuration setting, due to the time these files
take to load Ö you rich people out there with RiscPCs will have little
or no trouble. (Iæveájust gone green!)
9.06
The program
9.06
There is no copy protection on the disc, so backup first or install to
hard disc. The program can be installed anywhere on the disc you wish.
The configuration window is the main item, which allows several settings
to control the manner the frames load and wipe. You can run your
presentation in a carousel fashion, i.e. when the end is reached, it
restarts and goes on ad infinitum, or you can set it for a single pass.
There are 16 fade options, such as diamonds Ö when the current screen is
due to be changed, it fades and the new screen is introduced with an
overlay diamond effect.
9.06
These effects can be selected as a single fade throughout or Éallæ,
where a different fade is used for each update. You can, of course,
switch off the fade option if desired. The time between fades can be
altered; some screens obviously take longer for the spectator to digest
than others, especially if text is used. The display can be set to
change automatically or manually. This will be a great help if your
presentation is keyed to your speech and gives time for side tracking or
dealing with questions. Using this feature, it is possible to step
forwards and backwards using the mouse or icons on screen.
9.06
A presentation
9.06
A presentation is so easy to construct Ö I did not initially believe
this was all I had to do. To construct a basic presentation, you drag
your pictures into a directory, (files do not need to be squashed but
they can be if you prefer), name your directory to fit your presentation
for future reference, and then drag it onto the iconbar icon. The frames
step through in alphanumeric order using the configurations set up as
above Ö thatæs it!!
9.06
To top this, within the presentation directory make another directory
called sounds. Put sound samples, again squashed, into this directory
and name them the same as the associated picture. When the picture
loads, so long as you have a sample player, like ÉSoundConæ by Rick
Hudson, (FreeWare), you will hear the sound as well Ö impressive or
what?
9.06
For the more adventurous, control can be via script files, which are
also saved into your root presentation directory. These files are made
up of some very simple commands and are very easy to construct using a
text editor. This enables more precise control over the presentation.
9.06
At present, Portfolio can cater for the following filetypes:
9.06
Sprites, drawfiles, JPEG files, squashed sprites, squashed drawfiles,
GIF files, PCX files, BMP files, RLE files, PhotoCD files and Armadeus
sound files. (For PhotoCD, you will need to have Photoview loaded first.
This should have been provided with your CD-ROM.)
9.06
Conclusion
9.06
Excellent, no hang ups, no crashes, easy to use, versatile and
reasonably priced. Portfolio costs ú29 single user, ú29 primary school
site licence, and ú45 secondary school site licence from WECC, but you
have to add ú1 p&p and VAT to these prices.áuá
9.06
The Worldæs Weather CD-ROM
9.06
Dave Wilcox
9.06
The Worldæs Weather CD-ROM is one of the latest offerings from Anglia
Multimedia. It is produced to run on Acorn, Multimedia PC and Apple
Macintosh machines. From enquiries made, it would seem that it is aimed
at the age group 11-14 years.
9.06
The package
9.06
The disc comes in the normal crystal pack with a little booklet
explaining the running procedure for the various machines. Forgetting
the Éotheræ machines, from here on you will require an Archimedes ÉAæ
series or RiscPC to run this disc. The machine must have RISC OS 3.1 or
better, 4Mb of RAM, at least a single speed 150kps CD-ROM drive and a
monitor which supports 640╫480 pixels.
9.06
The software
9.06
There are really only two directories which will concern the average
user, ÉAcornæ and ÉActShtsæ. Taking the simplest first Ö ÉActShtsæ, as
you may have guessed, contains Activity Sheets for students to use in
conjunction with the disc, for further study. There are sixteen of these
sheets in draw format, all nicely laid out and very eye-catching when
printed, especially in colour.
9.06
ÉAcornæ is the business end of the disc. Opening this, you will find a
cut-down version of !CDFast, !Setup, !SysAuthor and !Weather. !CDFast is
a utility by Eesox to speed up CD access, !Setup contains the likes of
!System, !ARMovie, !ARPlayer etc.... !SysAuthor is the engine for
Angliaæs Multimedia display system and !Weather is the data file. Before
starting, you should select a 640╫480 screen mode in order to use the
full screen for display. This done, click on !CDFast followed by the
!Weather file and youære off.
9.06
As with most of Angliaæs Multimedia software, the presentation is
excellent. Full use is made of the machineæs capability to display
drawfiles and sprites, video files and animated files which, in places,
are accompanied by sound files.
9.06
The first menu page gives you two options; an introduction to the CD-ROM
or the Main Menu. The main menu starts out with five choices; Processes
in the atmosphere, Changing seasons, Weather and climate, Life in
different climate zones, and Resources. Each of these areas is then
broken down into more precise topics, and you are then taken through a
carousel-type presentation, giving you a concise overview of your chosen
area.
9.06
Movement through the data is by means of pointing and clicking the
mouse. Very simply, anything which is in yellow, or surrounded by a
yellow box, is a link to further pages. Normal movement is via a
cassette player-style control panel.
9.06
The drawfiles and sprites are available for student use in project work
via the resources option on the main menu. It is also possible to run
the program on the desktop in its own window for multitasking with a DTP
package, for example, enabling project work to be completed alongside
the carousel of displayed data, for easy reference.
9.06
Conclusion
9.06
I am always impressed by Angliaæs presentation; graphically it is
excellent, and the layout is eye¡catching and clean. There is, however,
one point this particular disc falls down on Ö the proof reading is
poor. To allow a CD of this quality to be spoilt by standard or
typographical errors is such a waste. Aáreally impressive package has
been marred for the sake of someone sitting down for an hour or so
reading through the text.
9.06
Despite that drawback, the content of this disc is still good enough for
me to recommend it. The Worldæs Weather will cost you ú49 +VAT or ú56
from Archive.áuá
9.06
Pineapple AVK/3 PAL Encoder
9.06
Stuart Bell
9.06
Just as my review of two PAL encoders was published in Archive 8.10 p63,
Pineapple Software announced a new model, the AVK/3, and they kindly
loaned me a unit for review. That first article discussed the technology
and purpose of PAL encoders in some detail. I wonæt repeat that, except
to say that such devices allow the production of the video output of
computers on ordinary TVs and video recorders.
9.06
The Pineapple PLC/3 and Rombo VGA Buster (!) encoders are simple devices
which will work only with ÉTV standardæ modes ù 12, 15, 35, etc ù to
produce images on TV screens. Adjustments are limited, and the mode
limitation is an increasing nuisance as Acorn computers move towards VGA
(600╫480), SVGA (800╫600) and much higher resolution modes. However,
both provide a cost-effective solution within those constraints.
9.06
The new AVK/3 encoder is a radical departure from earlier encoders. In
reality, it is a USA-sourced AverKey3 device produced for PCs and Macs,
re-badged by Pineapple, who also add a useful page of additional
information for users of Acorn computers. It comprises three components;
the main unit which is about 8ö ╫ 3ò ╫ 1ö, a plug-in mains adapter and a
neat remote control unit by which all the signal processing options are
selected. In addition, a massive range of cables is supplied, sufficient
for all possible needs, and all of a generous length.
9.06
Making the connection
9.06
Input to the device is by a standard 15-pin VGA socket. Outputs are
provided for the computer monitor by another 15-pin VGA socket, and also
provided are a phono composite-video signal, an S-VHS mini-DIN connector
and a SCART RGB connector. The last of these optimises quality for
suitably-equipped TVs, by avoiding the need for PAL encoding of the
picture signal, providing the red, green and blue signals directly to
the TV. All cabling is provided.
9.06
Remote control
9.06
This hand-held unit allows selection of options such as Ézoomæ to give a
2:1 magnification of a quarter of the screen, Éoverscanæ to widen the
image, Ésharpnessæ, Ébrightnessæ and Éfreezeæ to hold a particular frame
even though the input to the encoder has changed, but it also has a set
of three ways of altering the image. ÉWidthæ buttons alter the width of
the displayed image; Épositionæ alters the position (in two dimensions)
of the image on the screen; and Épanningæ moves similarly the position
of the image relative to the whole of the computer display ù i.e. if a
little of the whole image is being lost, Épanningæ allows the adjustment
of the edge of the image which will not be displayed. Settings can be
saved, or else reset to factory-set positions in case oneæs
experimentation goes out of control! In short, use of the remote-control
is simple, and a tweakeræs delight.
9.06
The AVK/3 in use
9.06
The first thing to stress is that, whereas the earlier devices would
only work with ÉTV standardæ modes such as 15 and 35, these are the very
modes with which the AVK/3 will not work. Instead, the increasingly
standard VGA and SVGA modes (28 and 31 on older machines) are the ones
to use. Using an elderly A310 with a VIDC enhancer, I was limited to 256
colours with VGA and 16 colours with SVGA, but the device should work
with 32K and 16M colours without any problems.
9.06
Whilst the Pineapple-provided notes detail how to get round a problem of
the iconbar being truncated from the display on RiscPCs in VGA mode, I
actually encountered a similar problem on my A310 in SVGA mode.  In my
case, this was almost certainly caused by the VIDC-enhancer, but the
panning and position controls minimised it.
9.06
The quality of the output is certainly better than that of earlier
devices, especially when the SCART RGB signal is used. When driving a
VCR ù necessarily with a composite video signal ù the quality
improvement is not so great, but this is because of the constraints of
the PAL encoding system.
9.06
Finally, as I was completing this review, Jim Nottingham wrote to me
detailing his conclusions. He too is impressed with the quality of the
output, and says that it was noticeably better than that obtained from a
Vine VGA encoder. He had no problems using it with a RiscPC, but did
encounter difficulties with a State Machine graphics card and Eizo
monitor on an A540.
9.06
In conclusion, the great benefit of the AVK/3 over earlier (and
admittedly much less expensive) devices is its ease of use with computer
configurations which normally use VGA and SVGA displays. If you are
using ÉTV standardæ monitors, or those multisync monitors which display
modes 15 and 35 full-screen and not in letter-box format, the older PLC/
3 encoder will meet your needs economically. Also, users of older
machines canæt benefit from the SVGA capability of the new unit, unless
16 colours are enough for their particular application.
9.06
However, for users of the RiscPC, and for those willing to spend the
extra money for long-term compatibility and optimal results, the AVK/3
PAL encoder is a superb device, which ù within the inevitable quality
limits imposed by domestic TVs and VCRs ù does all that could possibly
be required of a PAL encoder.
9.06
The AVK/3 PAL encoder is available from Pineapple at ú350 + VAT =
ú411.25 or ú395 through Archive.áuá
9.06
Photobase
9.06
Gabriel Swords
9.06
Photobase is the name of a piece of software that lies at the heart of
Longman Logotronæs photographic collections. Itæs a kind of database for
pictures, combining an indexing system for the images and a descriptive
card index to provide information and searching facilities. Although the
Photobase application is used extensively by Longman to control their
own CD-ROM image banks, it can be copied onto a hard drive and used to
assemble any collection of sprite-type images.
9.06
Once a PhotoBase collection is loaded, it opens onto a scrollable
window, revealing a collection of indexed directories, inside which are
numbered or named sprites. Along the top of this window, thereæs a menu
bar with a series of buttons Ö more on these later. Double-clicking one
of the directories opens a display of numbered, thumbnail images, ten at
a time Ö double-clicking one of the thumbnails opens the picture to
nearly fill the screen. Alternatively, by clicking <menu> over a
picture, further options become available; for example, Find opens the
directory in which the image(s) are held; Launch actually launches Paint
and displays the image in paint format.
9.06
Menu bar
9.06
The menu bar at the top of each window gives you five or six options,
depending where you are in the program. Probably the most useful of
these are Search, Index and Sequence. Search opens a window which allows
you to use search criteria for particular categories of image. Searching
can be done by using keywords, text, dates or leafname. The quickest way
of finding a category is to use a keyword; e.g. click on an activity
called ÉCelebratingæ and the index will find all the images which have
something to do with celebrations. Alternatively, you can look for
particular dates, or look for words or numbers within the index. Once
found, the images are collected as a series of thumbnails for viewing.
Thereæs a whole range of keywords, each designed to give you quick
access to a general category, such as music, sport, fighting, film,
industry, dancing, keep fit, etc. There are too many to mention them
all. If you want to be more precise in your search, you can get
Photobase to look for something within a category, e.g. Category: Music
Ö Look for: ÉConcertæ. This takes a bit longer, but not much. It took me
an average of 15-20 seconds to search 2500 images looking under two
categories using a single text keyword.
9.06
The second useful option on the menu bar is Index. This opens an Éindex
cardæ relating to either a single or a stack of pictures. If none are
selected, the card will display the first picture of the sequence and
allow you to scroll through the whole stack. On the left of the card,
thereæs a thumbnail of the picture; below thereæs a brief description of
what it is, plus a date, if known. Descriptions in the Photobase
collections are usually quite short and only give the barest details.
Sequence allows you to group a number of different frames into a
Éfilmstripæ sequence, in any order. Once this has been set up, it can be
run on screen as though you were showing your holiday snaps!
9.06
Because the Photobase collections are on CD-ROM, speed of access is
going to be a factor in whether they get used or not. I first tried
Decades on a single speed, and very old, Cumana drive. This is not
recommended; it was like wading through treacle! On a quad speed Eesox
drive, itæs much more accessible, even a delight to use. The software is
simple enough to use, and gives adequate search facilities. If I had to
quibble, I might say that more information on the images would have been
nice, but then this is a collection of photos, not an encyclopaedia.
9.06
The collections
9.06
Iæve been looking at two sets of Photobase collections: Photobase
Decades and Photobase Science. Decades is a collection of some 15,000
photographs and engravings brought together from the Hulton Deutsch
picture library. The images are divided into six CD-ROMs covering the
periods 1920æs Ö 1960æs, plus the Victorians. Each CD contains about
2,500 images. The images have been put onto CD in the form of sprites
and text files, and give a pictorial view of what life was like in the
periods in question. As already mentioned, the categories of picture are
very wide and so it does actually give you a good Éfeelæ for the periods
in question.
9.06
The Science collection has over 1400 science-related pictures covering
such topics as: Living things Ö plants, animals, insects and micro-
organisms; EartháÖáhabitat, climate, geology and structures; Astronomy Ö
planetary exploration and objects in deep space; Technology Ö industry,
processes and materials. Unlike the Decades collection, each sprite has
a name rather than a number. There are pictures of bridges, rockets,
flowers, animals, bacteria, galaxies, satellite photos Ö almost anything
which could be used in a scientific context.
9.06
All of the photographs are of the highest quality and offer a wide
variety of images to choose from. The collections are aimed primarily at
education, and providing you use them for educational purposes, the
images can be printed and distributed freely within the purchasing
institution. This means they can be used in DTP documents; they can be
printed; used to illustrate lectures; they can be modified and
incorporated into creative designs; and they can be loaded onto a
network and accessed accordingly.
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The main difference between Decades and other similar collections is
that Decades presents the images without much comment, relying on the
sheer number of images to provide a resource big enough to satisfy.
Other collections give more detail about the images, but provide less to
choose from. So, Éyou pays your money and takes your choiceæ.
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The question is, who is going to use them?
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Home users
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Thirty odd years ago, everyone had to have a complete set
encyclopaediaæs in their home Ö it was felt educationally right.
Salesmen played on the fact that children would learn from them and,
consequently, would be deprived if their parents didnæt buy them. Do the
Photobase collections come into this category? It is a terrific resource
Ö where else could you find so many images in one place and with such
easy access? But, like encyclopaedias of old, the complete collection
will set you back a fair amount Ö ú330 in all. It is a collection worth
having, but you and your children can live without them.
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For the home user, the collection could be viewed like one of those
coffee-table books you see lying around Ö itæs really interesting to
delve into from time to time. For nostalgiaæs sake, you could buy one of
the decades which most appeals to you and cast around for memories. For
those of us who lived through the sixties, we can ask yet again, Édid we
really dress like that?æ If I were going to buy any of the Photobase
collections for home use, I would probably buy the Science Collection
and one of the Decades.
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Others
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According to Longman Logotron, lots of non-educational people have been
asking for permission to use the images in a variety of publications Ö
from leisure centres and local government to libraries and graphic
designers. Clearly, the collection has an appeal which goes much further
than educational establishments. And why not? Trying to get access to
photo archives is not exactly difficult, but it is time consuming and
expensive. So, having this many images available in one place has got to
be a really useful resource. But the images are not free of copyright.
To get permission to use the Decades images, non-educational
establishments have to write to: Hulton Deutsch, Unique House, 21Ö31
Woodfield Road, London W9 2BA, to whom you will probably have to pay a
fee. To use the Science images, write to Longman Logotron. Iæll write to
both and let you know whatæs involved.
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Schools
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For schools, this really is a good collection of images. Printing and
photocopying sets of images for a whole year group would prove too much
for any departmentæs budget, but making the images available for pupils
to use in their own way certainly is viable. You feel that this
collection should at least find its way into the school library or
resource centre and, with the CDBrick, making the images available
across a network is easier than ever. The collection is so varied that
almost any subject area could use them. Highly recommended.
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The Photobase collections cost ú49 +VAT each from Longman Logotron or
ú55 through Archive.áuá
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Detritus
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Andrew Rawnsley
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Adventure games arenæt common on the Acorn platform, and good ones are
certainly a rarity. It says something that most fans of the genre still
regard the Magnetic Scrollsæ products of 1988-91 as some of the best
Acorn adventures.
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In recent times, we have seen the emergence of the graphic adventure as
the predominant form of computer puzzling, with classics such as Simon
the Sorcerer attracting many players who would otherwise ignore such
titles.
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Detritus, from a new software house called Myndgaemz, (marketed by Byte
Back Computing) follows in this style, but the stunning photographic
visuals hark back to those of Magnetic Scrolls who first proved that
adventure games really could be brightened up with beautiful images.
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1991-1995
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So, have the last four years produced anything new in terms of interface
and design?
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At first sight, you might think not, as the main graphic for each
location takes over the top two-thirds of the screen, and the user
interface dominates the bottom. However, gone is the traditional
flashing cursor waiting for such odious input as:
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    > North
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    > Open gate
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    Which gate? The blue gate or the big gate?
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    > Open blue gate
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    > Get toffee
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    > Eat toffee
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Ah, that brings back memories!
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Detritus
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Detritus avoids all this, providing a panel of verbs, allowing object
manipulation, and examination of your location.
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Movement is achieved by positioning your mouse over the image of your
location (Éfilmedæ on location in Gosport living medieval village), and
either pointing to a visible exit or to the edge of the screen. The
pointer will change into an exit arrow, allowing you to click to enter
the next room.
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If you locate an object or character in the image, you will be given a
little information, but the Éexamineæ verb tends to be more useful.
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Storyline
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The plot for Detritus comes in two halves. The first, described in the
impressive, animated introduction sequence, describes how a nuclear
incident has reduced the worldæs population to small enclaves of people
living in tiny, historical villages.
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Just as in the Middle Ages, people spent their entire lives in and
around the same location, rarely travelling outside the realms of their
village, so this future society exists, with its blacksmith, tavern,
druid, monks and alchemist.
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The second half of the storyline is given in the novella supplied with
the package. This tells the story of Nikki, a young woman whose husband,
Toni, has been kidnapped by the evil daemon, Arrut Loopaz. In order to
free him, Nikki must complete several tasks for the various other demons
who inhabit the land.
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Presentation
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The presentation of Detritus is something of a mystery to me. The main
visuals are stunning, with each location given full photo-realistic
treatment. However, the verb panel and manual are poor, to say the
least.
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When youære paying ú30 for a product, you expect some kind of
professional packaging.
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Puzzles
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The difficulty with any graphical adventure is that you are limited to
the verbs shown on the screen. This effectively means that with a little
(?) time, you can solve the entire game by trial and error.
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The second problem is that text-based adventures can provide more
information and clues in their room and object descriptions. Mazes are
also easier to implement. However, by providing a large array of
objects, strange characters and obscure locations, there are enough
puzzles in Detritus to keep most people happy.
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As an experienced adventure gamer, I must say that Iáfound most of the
puzzles rather simple, and the only difficulties were caused by
illogical results from completing certain tasks, and my repeatedly
missing a pipe which was cunningly hidden in one location!
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There is a substantial collection of red herrings, and this is no bad
thing, but I did end up feeling that perhaps a little more could have
been done with the items and locations available.
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Final words
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Itæs difficult to draw a single conclusion on Detritus. Much of it is
wonderful, with the music and graphics particularly so. The variety of
characters and puzzles should keep most players amused for some time,
but I find it hard to recommend the game to ardent adventure fans.
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Itæs a shame that the graphical adventure style has brought with it an
awful lot of fairly simple adventures, but almost no really taxing
titles, like those seen on the BBC.
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Anyway, if youæve completed Simon the Sorcerer (which still gets my vote
for number one), and are looking for another game of the same ilk, I
recommend purchasing Detritus. Itæs just a shame that a little more
effort wasnæt put into perfecting some of the other aspects of
presentation.
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Detritus costs ú29.95 from Byte Back Computing.áuá
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Theodore Fonts
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Dave Wilcox
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Theodore fonts is part of an Engraversæ Collection based on styles used
by engravers in the 18th and 19th centuries, and is a new package from
ÉThe Datafileæ. I think most people will already be aware of their
Medieval and Gothic Collections, and the excellent quality of these two
packages. This new set is of the same high standard and is by the same
author, Tony Nash.
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The package
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The software comes on two discs accompanied by a 16 page manual/index,
all presented in a plastic fold-over wallet. Disc one contains a copy of
Acornæs !NewChars2, and a fonts directory containing the Theodore font
family, which consists of Regular, Bold, Expert, Fancy, Fancy Open, Open
and Tooled. There are two text files concerning copyright notices and
information about Turbo Driver problems. There is also a sample of a
font to be included in Part II of the Engraversæ Collection called ÉR-
Classicæ.
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Disc two contains !ArcFS (Read only) and two compressed directories,
Decorations and Theodore Capital letters, both containing drawfiles. In
the Capitals directory is a page for each letter of the alphabet with
each capital letter having two versions fully decorated, one of which is
modified to allow text to be correctly positioned next to the capital.
The decorations directory contains Footers, Headers, Framework and Frame
Tops. Samples of some of these can be seen in the frame below.
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The manual is more of an index really, with each font style printed out
in full, with one style per page, followed by the graphics and the
decorated capitals.
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Quality
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As I said at the beginning, I am personally of the opinion that this is
very high quality work. An examination of the font shows that full use
has been made of scaffolding and skeleton structures in order to
maintain their definition in large or small sizes, and most of the
special characters are also included.
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As regards printing, it is stated that the standard Acorn Driver has no
problems. However, with the CC Turbo Driver, you apparently get an
address exception error and need to turn off the fast text/half tone
option Ö apparently a problem CCæs end. I have not encountered this
problem with my Turbo Driver with text half tone on, so I would suggest
you try it and see. (I am using HP-LjetIII 3.05g 24/2/94, with Acornæs
Driver 1.28c 9/2/95.) Perhaps it is a fault with older versions which
has now been corrected?
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Datafile warn that when printing via a dot matrix printer, some
definition may be lost and the result a bit poor. I am unable to verify
to what extent this loss of definition occurs. Laser printers have no
problems in terms of definition but, due to the half tone dot patterns,
you may get slight image breaking at small sizes.
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Conclusion
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This is an excellent quality package of the standard now expected from
Tony Nash. I hope he can continue to turn out work like this for the
future. One other point in favour is that the PC world are clamouring
for packages of this nature. As a result, Datafile are thinking of
converting it for use on the PC. Part I of the Engravers Set costs
ú27.50 inclusive of VAT and p&p from The Datafile (but see below).áuá
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Dave was reviewing the two-disc version but it has now been extended
with more borders and more characters and is a three-disc set costing
ú30 from The Datafile, or ú28 through Archive. Part II of The Engraversæ
Set is nearing completion and is due to be available in March. Ed.áuá
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